A rambunctious passion fruit vine overcompensates itself in a portion of my garden.  A few under planted white calla lilies collide with the ravenous vine.  But the lily’s determination to break through the thick vine succeeds and an over-sized lily blossoms thru the vine—creating  a stunning garden contrast—and victory over the dominate vine.

The recent arguments and defensive mechanisms by the gun industry is much like my overcompensating passion fruit vine.  Through its root, the National Rifle Association, an intertwined, over-fertilized pattern of news and opinion production has led a portion of devotees to claim that our Second Amendment rights are under attack because there are those of us who disagree that an assault weapon is an appropriate citizen’s weapon in a civilized world.

We could dance all day long with statistics and slogans and platitudes—to no avail.  What I read is,  “Gun Rights Hysteria!”  Well, kids, what about my rights?  Think of me as that under planted calla lily.    Don’t I have the right to not worry about a heavily armed person assailing my grandchildren’s school rooms? Don’t I have the right to not be concerned about walking into a public facility and being mindful of how I should react if there is some nearby loon with a high-capacity semi-automatic rifle?

I will predict the answer to my questions:  “Carry a gun.”  The United States is not a third-world nation and I will not behave as if it were.  I choose civilized behavior.

Yes, yes, our nation hosts a plethora of nut jobs and a profitable industry of violent electronic games and productions to feed the depraved mind.   So we ban the games and movies and then overstock the gun larder instead?  And, exactly who plans to spend the money to treat the mentally ill?  I’m thinking it won’t come from the fun-with-guns industry.  Our governing heads can’t even agree on simple care of the elderly and our society’s helpless, much less the mentally ill.  But putting an end to small weapons of mass-societal destruction is a threat to our democracy? Balderdash.

And to me, the fact that we debate how many rounds of ammo should be legal or not, deserves an award for top-shelf loony tune dialogue.

Don’t get your knickers in a knot and define me as peace-freak that frolics in Pollyanna’s strawberry fields.  A gun may or may not be registered to me or my husband—who is a marksman.  I would defend my family and home in an instant—but if I need a 100-round clip to do so—I’m probably already at the losing end.

Has our collective society flung logic into the air as if it were a clay disk in a skeet shooting match?  Is gruff, obstinate, and in-your-face behavior the new American way?  Must we crawl through mud to seek shelter from endless conspirators and their toadies?

I understand that this rant will change nothing.  But my prayer is that America takes a deep breath, rediscovers our commonalities, and returns to behaving as a civilized nation that cares for each other.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, the early 18^th century German artist, writer and politician best defines my perspective today, “The older I get the more I trust in the law according to which the rose and the lily bloom.”