Blog @ Work

Handguns and camping

"30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  [13+]
This week, there was another mass shooting...this time at a concert in a night club in Arkansas. Coincidentally, earlier this past year the governor of Arkansas signed legislation allowing concealed handguns to be carried in certain venues (including colleges, bars and night clubs, and government buildings). What can be done to prevent these incidents of violence?

I am very much afraid there’s nothing that can be done to prevent these incidents of violence. Illegal and legal weapons are very easy to come by, especially in the US. Because of the dominant lobby for guns in the US, it is hard to ban handguns, since everybody is allowed to have one. But I am sure there are things that can and should be done with those pieces of destruction. First, you should do something about the legislation concerning weaponry. It’s better to sign papers when you buy something, that way everybody has to put a name on paper to make it legal. Second, there should be rules if you want to buy a handgun. All of this to make people conscious of the fact that it’s not normal to own or use a gun. But if people want to do bad things, they can and will do them, no matter what. Apparently, this incident was related to gang-shooting and drive-by-shooting of gang members. There is not much you can do about that.

In my country, it is not allowed for citizens to own or use guns except when part of a shooting association and then there are rules and check-ups. But in the case of Tristan Vander Vlist, a young guy with a history of mental illness, he could purchase such a license from a shooting association although he should have been prohibited due to his history of mental illness. He had a legal gun and shot a lot of people dead in a shopping mall in Alphen aan de Rijn, a few years back. This should have been prevented by the police when checking his papers for the gun, they didn’t do a good job and he slipped through the maze.

You cannot prevent actions like this; you can make it more difficult to own a gun. But since that’s not going to happen incidents like above will continue to happen, unfortunately.

PROMPT: Tell us about one of your fondest childhood memories from a summer vacation. (BC)

When I was twelve years old we went camping in Belgium. We borrowed the tents from my father’s brother and his family. They left Opklapbeek in Belgium; we came to the camping and took over. We were with five, my father, mother and three kids. I can remember the weather was very bad. At one time we had to cling to the tent to prevent it from blowing away in the wind and the rain. But it was a wonderful time with lots of friends and lots of fun. One time we had a friendly soccer game on the grass. One of the boys lost his contact lens on the grass. We all helped to look for it and believe it or not, we found the contact lens on the grass. The whole camping celebrated. We also learned how to play Canasta, a game of cards. To this day I sometimes play this game, we learned so many years ago. It was a good holiday, one of the few. So I remember it well.