In August 2023 I stopped using my bank account, I closed it a few months later and never looked back. It was not easy getting there. There were many things that, I believed, depended on me having a bank account such as:The ability to buy online, usually Amazon and SteamThe ability to buy online, usually Amazon and SteamPaying my bills online, usually phone, VPN, and internetPaying my bills online, usually phone, VPN, and internetGetting direct deposit payments, usually from work and taxesGetting direct deposit payments, usually from work and taxesGetting E-Transfer payments, usually from side jobsGetting E-Transfer payments, usually from side jobsSending money to friends, usually wire transfers Sending money to friends, usually wire transfers Having a debit card for in-store purchasesHaving a debit card for in-store purchasesHaving a debit card for making reservationsHaving a debit card for making reservationsHaving a savings account for safekeeping moneyHaving a savings account for safekeeping money

On March 30, 1981, 25-year old John W. Hinckley, Jr. shot president Ronald Reagan. He traveled 2,800 miles by bus from Los Angeles to Washington DC. He spent one night in a hotel and the next morning he read President Reagan's itinerary, he then armed himself with a Röhm six-shot .22 caliber revolver and attended the conference where Reagan was to be present.

Amidst the tragedies we have witnessed in the past two decades involving gun violence, such as murder, suicide, mass shootings, gang shootings, police shootings, and others. We have to ask ourselves:Why the school shootings? Why are people, mostly kids, shooting up our schools?

We have seen many cases of gun violence where the tragedy could have been avoided if parents had been a bit more responsible and aware of how their kids were doing. I can imagine the anger and frustration the families of victims have felt when parents were not held in some way responsible for such tragedies. Only recently there have been a few cases where parents have been charged following a crime committed by their children.

I mentioned on my last blog post how there are many contributing factors to our gun violence problem, many of which nobody talks about. Every time there is a school shooting the first thing we hear is that guns are the problem and that they must be banned and taken away. The media then proceeds to make an analysis of the weapon and a list of all the reasons of why it is bad and scary. At the same time they suppress information like the motive and mental state of the perpetrator, just as they did with the 2023 Nashville, Tennessee school shooting.

Coming from a country that has some of the strictest gun laws in the Americas, I can say that gun control doesn't work the way the government would have you believe. Gun control is evidently a very complicated matter as is gun violence or any violent crime for that matter. We as a people have built a great global civilization where life is many times safer than it was a century ago, but we are not perfect. Our societies are plagued by a myriad of issues such as poverty, crime, mental illness, war, political and social instability, among many others. However, we enjoy longer periods of peace, higher life expectancy, and better quality of life in general. Yet we are made to believe that we should live in fear.