Monthly Mash-up for August, 2015: Best Friends and Gun Violence

Me - My topic for this month is best friends. Best friends are probably one of the greatest things in life. I met my best friend in school last year. My Grandma always used to tell me that I should join a sport because then I could meet people and make more friends. However, my best friend and I bonded because we are both bad at sports, and in gym class, we used to hide behind our mutual friend who is really athletic. Then, we just started hanging out together and became best friends. I think one of the most amazing feelings is knowing that no matter where you are or what you are doing, there is someone in the world who's always got your back.  Life is so much better when you have a best friend. One of the best parts of having a best friend is having someone to experience things with you. Whether it's a new experience or something that you've done a million times, everything is always better when you have a best friend to experience it with you. Best friends have a way of bringing you out of your comfort zone in the best way. My best friend is a like a second sister to me, and I know that no matter what we'll always be there for each other.

Mom - My topics for this month is gun violence. To this day, I still cannot get the faces of those children  killed at Sandy Hook elementary school out of my mind. It especially effected me because my younger daughter was about the same age at the time. Since, then things have not gotten better. It seems like every time you turn on the TV there has been another multiple shooting and even on the rare days when that does not happen there is never a day when at least one person and probably a lot more innocent people don't get shot and killed. Still, some people are more concerned with protecting people's rights to own guns then protecting people from gun violence. Saying guns don't kill people, people kill people means nothing. It may be technically true, however, as I saw on a sign one day, guns don't kill people all by themselves. The whole gun issue just shows one important thing about the human race and that is that  a lot of people care more about their own rights then the rights and safety of us all. I mean I am not saying that nobody has a right to own a gun, but shouldn't we want to keep them out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill and children at least. To my mind, the only reason you should ever need a gun is if you work in some type of law enforcement profession or you want to go hunting. I don't really understand hunting myself,  I mean killing for sport doesn't sound fun whether you are talking about animals or people. However, I get that some people enjoy it. Still, to go hunting, you should not require the types and amounts of guns and ammunition that they are finding on these mass shooters so why should people be able to buy those things. Recently, I received a Sandy Hook promise bracelet. I wear it now to remind me not only of the children of Sandy Hook, but of the other innocent children killed by gun violence as well like Christina-Taylor Green  and also to remind me of the innocent adults killed by gun violence like Victoria Soto and Allison Parker and all the other children and adults killed by guns many of whose names are not as well known. Although there will never come a day when those people should be remembered any less, it would be nice if there came a day when there weren't so many new names constantly being added to the list. Sadly, I'm not counting on that happening anytime soon though.