In 2021, 49,000 Americans died because of guns. In the European Union (about the same number of people as America), there were 6500 killed with guns. We have 7.5 times as many deaths by guns than the Europeans! Why? Because we have more guns!
The EU has 15.7 guns per 100 people. We have 121 guns per 100 people! Simple math points out that we have 7.7 times more guns than they do in the EU. That is why we have 7.5 times the number of gun deaths.
The Second Amendment guarantees our citizens the right to “bear arms”. No one wants to take that away. However, we have a serious problem with gun deaths. So, there is a need to regulate guns. Universal gun checks will not take away the right for a law-abiding citizen to own a gun. They will, however, reduce the number of felons or mentally-ill people from owning a gun. Red flag laws just make sense. If someone has a mental health issue or is threatening a wife, child, or someone else, then the government must protect other citizens from gun violence. Finally, assault-type weapons that are designed to kill humans should not be allowed. When they were restricted by the Brady law, gun deaths went down.
Let's pray that Republicans are willing to legislate new laws to protect us. Let’s make America great again by making America a safer place to live.
This is the America that has evolved over many years of unrestrained gun purchases...as well as a total lack of concern for who gets killed by those toys that kids are playing with--from a young age to adults!
Jesus, Please call these children to You before they, too, walk the streets looking for a place to shoot people instead of tin cans...
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Revelations: Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea! For the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time. Rev. 12:12
CHAPTER ONE Arecibo, Puerto Rico Present Day The gray-haired man brushed past the three graduate students who greeted him with “amazing”, “awesome”, “unbelievable” and a glass of champagne. He sat down on the chair and closest to the large computer monitor and studied the computer screen. Nimble fingers danced over the keyboard, and the screen came alive with numbers and symbols. His eyes widened and his face paled. Grim-faced, he rose and stepped toward the three graduate students who backed away, now frightened of the man who had been more like a grandfather than a boss. The tiny female had been biting her nails, but now, with her former astronomy teacher so stern and inches from her face, she held her hands up to protect herself. Instead of striking her, he patted the pockets of her pants. “Dr. Wellman!” “Shut up,” he snapped and pushed past her to pat down the male beside her. “Your cell phones. Where are they?” “A—At the condo. At least for me,” replied the taller of the two male students as Dr. Wellman probed all his pockets. The third student, hands raised, came next. “No cell phones, sir. Per protocol.” After patting down the third student, Wellman took two steps to the corner of the room and checked the computer log of outgoing calls from the landline. The last call was to him. The only other call, an hour earlier, was to a pizza place. He turned and studied the eyes of the three students. The young woman was terrified. Good, he thought. The taller of the male students glared at him. Good. No shame. Nothing to hide. The other young man was simply bewildered, his eyes wide. Finally, Wellman gave a pent-up sigh of relief and wearily collapsed on the chair. Screeching sounds from outside broke the short silence. The students looked out the windows and saw black cars filling the driveway. They looked back at Dr. Wellman, his wrinkled face contorted into a pained expression. “I’m- I'm so sorry for what is about to happen.” Police officers poured into the small room, filling it with blue and black uniforms. They handcuffed all three students and pushed them out the door. The last thing Dr. Wellman heard was the young woman repeating the only two words she’d spoken since his arrival: “Dr. Wellman!” This time it was a call for help. He made no move to help her. Instead, he swiveled the chair around, found the daily log, and signed it. Then he stood and walked past the half dozen officers picking up books, papers, even waste paper baskets. From the cool control room of the Arecibo radio telescope, he emerged into the light of the hot, humid Puerto Rican afternoon. The police cars carrying his graduate students sped toward the airport. Two men in suits ignored him, went into the control room, and closed the door behind them. Dr. Wellman grunted. He was superfluous now. Police, carrying black bags filled with papers and books, marched past him and zoomed off in their respective cars. The last police car, lights blinking, had its back door wide open. A single police officer waited for him. “You ready, sir?” “Yup. Let’s go.”
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One week later Colgate University, New York The applause in the auditorium subsided when the college provost raised his hands. He cleared his throat and spoke over the last die-hard clappers. “It is obvious from your applause that you rather enjoyed tonight’s presentation.” The clapping threatened to erupt anew, so he yelled into the microphone. “Dr. Worthington will now take questions from the floor.” Dozens of hands went up all at once. Astrophysicist Dr. Aster Worthington, the newly appointed director of the Hayden Planetarium, bright, blonde, and beautiful, smiled as she stepped back to the podium. She preferred engaging her audience personally and enjoyed this part of her presentation the most. Aster pointed to a teenage boy wildly waving his hand right in front of her. “Dr. Worthington, it has to be possible to travel between the stars. Think about how much exploration has progressed in just the last five hundred years. Columbus took months to cross the Atlantic. Now, we can fly across in just hours. We should be able do the same thing with space travel.” Her lecture, titled “The Myth of Interstellar Travel,” offered a flurry of exquisite photographs of stars and visual effects scaling the staggering size of the universe. Her intent was to persuade her audience that interstellar travel should not be on Man’s bucket list. But here it was again: the difficulty human minds had in comprehending the vastness of the universe. She sighed. Analogy, numbers, or just blow it off? Probably from some private school. Okay. Numbers. “We are shackled by speed and time,” she began earnestly. “Go fast, and the energy needs are outrageously high. Go slow, and you spend centuries in your spaceship just getting to your nearest neighbor.” Her enthusiastic questioner rolled his eyes and scoffed, unconvinced. She didn’t expect him to accept her words. At least, not at first. Time for the first punch. “By using a tremendous amount of fuel, and a few, fortuitous gravity assists, the spaceship of the Juno Mission traveled 87,000 miles per hour. That’s over two million miles a day. It’s the fastest spaceship we have.” The boy beamed. “That’s what I mean,” he blurted. “We can go to the stars.” She gave him a sad smile, the kind a loving parent wore when first they told a child there was no Santa Claus. “How long would it take the Juno spacecraft, the fastest one we have, to reach the nearest star?” Before he could answer, Aster held up her finger, and she looked down like she was considering something. It was great theater, she knew. She paused a moment, biting down lightly on her bottom lip. In a conspiratorial voice, she leaned across the podium toward the teenager. “Let’s assume we develop more efficient fuel and considerably better rockets. Let’s also throw in… what, two or three extra gravity assists? Maybe that ninth planet that’s just been discovered far beyond Pluto and perhaps a large rogue planet between us and Alpha Centauri. They could provide more gravity assists. Anyway, just for the purposes of this discussion, let’s suppose the speed of our spacecraft is not just 87,000 miles per hour, but 200,000 miles per hour.” The young man’s eyes opened wide, and excited discussions bubbled up in the great hall. He nodded, leaning forward in his chair. “This new ship,” she continued, “Can travel over five million miles in a day. How long would it take this super-charged spaceship to arrive at the nearest star, a mere four light years away?” The boy eyed her suspiciously, sensing a trap. When he answered, his tone came out hesitant. “Maybe… a few years?” She shook her head. “Over three thousand years.” The boy deflated into his seat for a moment, letting out a rush of air. But youth is resilient: “We just have to go faster. Somehow.” Aster’s eyebrows rose. “Ahh, but remember the problem with going faster. It costs more energy. Suppose you go ten times faster. Now the trip will only take 300 years.” There were a few chuckles in the audience. “Unfortunately, the fuel requirement goes up as the square of the speed. So, the fuel required for this mission would be a hundred times more. A hundred times! That would be more fuel than we have spent on all previous missions combined in this century. And if you want to get there...to our nearest neighbor, mind you...in a few years...the energy output would be, well, enormous. More energy than man has used in the last two centuries.” Aster regarded the boy, a sympathetic frown on her face. “Spaceships zipping around the galaxy is a fantasy. It’s not real and never will be real. Depressing, I know. Distances in space are—” she spread out her arms, “astronomical.”
