In searching for solace following the announcement that Claire Davis had died of the injuries she suffered at the school shooting in Arapahoe, Colorado, I did what comes naturally to many of us; I thought of home. The childhood I had known with its safety and warmth. It was there, on a field of white, that I found the spigot which allowed me to continue the flow of determination necessary to drive forward. The Rhode Island state flag is a field of white with thirteen gold stars arranged in a circle with a gold anchor in the middle above the word Hope on a blue ribbon. Hope. The word rings with anticipation, excitement and an overall expectation that tomorrow will be better than today.
This thought from home also forced me to consider the difference between hope and faith. To me, faith is the hope I have in others that someone else will fix the problem, whereas hope is the faith I have in myself that I can fix the problem.
I know what you’re thinking; that’s a very libertarian thought for someone who has been called a “libtard,” an “Obamabot,” and, through my limited understanding of texting idioms to “GFY” (which I initially understood to mean “good for you.”) My children, between fits of laughter later explained that my Twitter adversary and I had NOT reached a common understanding on the gun violence issue! However, after one year of being an “accidental activist,” I can say, without reservation, that I am not alone and that my Hope is buoyed by the knowledge that there are others risking vitriol and threats of physical harm to move America toward a safer future. Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the Brady Campaign, It Can Happen Here and others are stocked with motivated, opinionated and politically active members.
My hope is that we have enough faith in each other to know we will fix this problem.
Thoughts at Large 
“My hope is that we have enough faith in each other to know we will fix this problem.
Me too. We need armed “good guys” in our schools to protect our children. Period. We protect our money with armed guards. Are kids less important than our money? Or do some people hate guns more than they love children, hate guns so much they can’t see the common sense of protecting kids with guns?
lwk
We all want to protect our children. However, our solutions cannot be further apart. To me, the answer to gun violence is not more guns no more than the answer to cancer is more cancer. My best to you and may we all continue to discuss how to make the world a better place amicably and openly.
“the answer to gun violence is not more guns no more than the answer to cancer is more cancer”
The fallacy of your view is that cancer is always harmful to life. That is not true of guns. Americans may use guns up to 2,500,000 times a year to save lives and protect from criminals and other people who do not respect the laws, individuals, and often life itself. As many as 400,000 lives may be saved every year because someone had a gun.
See:
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology (Northwestern) Guns and Violence Symposium, vol. 86, no. 1, 1995: 150.
ARMED RESISTANCE TO CRIME: THE PREVALENCE AND NATURE OF SELF-DEFENSE WITH A GUN
Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz
http://www.saf.org/lawreviews/kleckandgertz1.htm
Now some may question the research of Kleck and Gertz above and clearly they came up with some of the largest numbers for self defensive use of guns. However some 12 other studies also came up with large numbers too, although not as large.
The plain fact to anyone not blinded by ideology is that guns probably save hundreds of lives every day from murder, rape, robbery, and other criminal violence.
So clearly your comparison of guns to cancer is just plain wrong because it ignores the good that is done with guns, whether those guns are in the hands of police officers, or law abiding citizens.
regards,
lwk