When these mass shootings happen, everyone looks for solutions or something to blame. Many accuse the availability of guns along with the mind poisoning effects of the internet. Once these two items get identified, there is a bit more blustering about how horrible mass shootings are and nothing gets done. The reason nothing gets done is guns and the internet happens to be our First and Second Amendments to the Constitution. It’s not universally expedient to challenge the Constitution and is why nothing happens — shooting after shooting.

Many ask why a civilized country like the United States can have these mass shootings that no other country has. America has this, “gun culture” and it’s all about the guns! Guns are certainly a big part of the mass shooting equation but, what the United States also has that no other country has is freedom. That freedom comes at a cost. A free society permits guns and speech to all but, freedom is also prone and subject to abuse. At what price do we want to retain our freedom?

The Democrat party has finally openly admitted to something most everyone already knew —they are socialists. The socialist/ communists’ ideology around the world would not dare adopt the U.S. Constitution. They would not allow freedom of speech and certainly no guns in private hands. Our socialist neighbors and countries abroad reflect the beliefs of the Demo/socialists running for president right here in America — few to no guns allowed in private hands.

The people who have died here in America at the hands of fellow Americans with guns laid their lives down on the altar of freedom just as sure as any American soldier. The freedom we cherish isn’t free because some here choose to abuse that freedom. As a nation, we must ask ourselves if we want to scrap our constitutional freedoms for, ‘safety’— by which we may well end up with neither! Republicans and the Democratic/ socialist parties will forever clash. Political oil and water will never mix.

KARL SCHMIDT lives in Prince Edward County. His email address is tenbears@centurylink.net.