Whew....it's only Saturday and this week has already used up all of it's emotion and energy in America.

Obviously, the Boston Marathon bombing has taken center stage. 

Some thoughts:

1. Terrorism is still a horrible and ongoing possibility.  Angry people will do drastic things and hurt people.  That's a given.

2. Our law enforcement has amazing restraint.  Between high nervous alert and tiredness, they managed not to kill the second suspect. 

3. Photographs (yes, I do hit up Twitter) from the people in the Watertown area showed law enforcement in full tactical gear searching homes.  While the need was there, there is also something chilling about those photographs.

4. There is a huge outpouring of sympathy for those killed and a burning desire to help those injured.  It's what we do best in the worst of times.

5. I never thought you could make an area of one million plus persons "shelter in place". Boston and it's environs win the hide and seek prize hands down.

6. The news media were, as usual, on display.  The news got reported but so did rumors and downright lies.

7.  Glenn Beck is a total idiot.  His foreign policy authority that it was a Saudi who was being hustled out of the country was pure bull.

8.  Ditto for Ann Coulter.  Nice job, tweeting your network rival as the best place to get the news.

9.  NBC sent a real reporter, Ann Curry, to actually investigate the news rather than hair plug Matt.  That may have been their best move yet.

10.  You didn't hear much about the woman who was abused in Boston for her heritage.  Bet you won't hear much either.

11. I need to develop the focus of the marathon runners who, when the bomb went off around them, still were determined to finish the race.  They ran 26 miles and I can hardly walk 2 miles.

12. People were almost a detriment to the investigation.  Just because you can broadcast the police scanner feed via Twitter does not mean that you should.  DUH!

13. All the people screaming about immigrants in this country should remember that one of those killed in Boston was a temporary immigrant from China.

14.  A lot of folks will need therapy for their knee jerk reactions to all of this.

15.  Memo to Arkansas legislator who tweeted that the "Boston Liberals probably wished that they had ARs with magazines right about now"--if you are stupid, keep your mouth shut and don't advertise it.

16. I have to wonder if the two bombers were attempting to plant a bomb at MIT when they ran into the policeman they killed.  We'll never know if his death saved many.

17. Christians will struggle with praying for justice and praying for justice for the bomber.

18. The President was correct in going to Boston and offering comfort to the city.  Those who do not believe so would find fault if he grew wings and a halo.

19. The world was watching.  This may or may not be a good thing.  We gave away a lot of secrets about our firepower and tactics.

20. All that technology and skill and it turned out to be a guy who noticed his boat who found him. 

21. Best tweet I read.  "Let's see.  The bomber is in a boat.  On dry land.  In a town called Watertown.  Priceless!"

22. It will take a long time for Boston to heal.  Wait until they get the police bill.

But Boston wasn't the only story this week.

In Texas, in a town called West, a horrific explosion occurred.

Fifteen are dead (so far), ten of whom were first responders.

At last count 60 were still missing.  The odds are not in their favor.

The nation, while riveted to the Boston story was also praying for Texas.

Politicians who voted against the Hurricane Sandy relief package are now coming, hat in hand, asking for government money for West.

Towns with these types of plants are now looking at them in brand new ways.

In a lot of ways, West was lucky that the explosion happened when it did.  Earlier in the day and the middle school there would have been full.

As the world turned this week, there were wars (Syria, where rebel fighters paused to send a photo of their support to the Boston PD), natural disasters (big earthquakes in China and Iraq), and funerals (Margaret Thatcher and countless others).

The world will continue to turn.  Better rest up.  This week might be even busier!

....man's inhumanity toward man.

OK, here's the deal.

I respect your Second Amendment rights fight.  To me the Constitution is one of the most amazing documents humankind ever managed to put together.

But here's the thing.

Where were all the "you'll pry my gun from my cold dead hands" because it's my Constitutional right to have them! when the Patriot Act was passed which not only walked all over your Fourth Amendment rights but literally stomped them to shreds?

I noticed an astonishing silence then.  After all, we were protecting the country by passing that.

If you are bent out of shape thinking that the government is looking to single out gun owners by requiring background checks, I have news for you.  Every time you spend over a grand for something or move that amount of money or more, there's a record of that to the government.    If you've ever bought cold medicine and had to sign your name, the itty bitty fine print states that you are giving the government permission to go through whatever of your records they need to without contacting you.  So, that credit card purchase of a gun?  The government knows you have it.  Moved money around to do home repairs or got a car loan?  The government knows your stuff.

So strap your gun on your hip or over your shoulder, get out your NRA shirts and parade around in public claiming your Second Amendment rights.  But please don't claim to be protecting the Constitution unless you are willing to fight for the Fourth Amendment as well.

By the way, this is my congressman.  Doesn't he look tough?

I've been pondering this post for quite some time.  No matter how I write this, I am bound to offend one or more groups of individuals and their beliefs.

Not that such offenses will stop me.

So...here goes.

Wayne LaPierre, spokes-mouth of the NRA has put forth a multi-hundred page proposal for arming the school buildings of our nation. 

English teacher everywhere just sighed and said, "No, the buildings were not armed...the people were."  (Offense number 1)

In this proposal, the NRA would promote the training of individuals, paid or already working in the building, who would be armed to guard against the intruder who will blast his or her way into the building with intent to harm those inside.

While such incidents have happened, the number of such incidents is incrementally SMALL....if you take the number of incidents and compare them to the number of school buildings in this country, the chances of an outside intruder coming in and creating the kind of mayhem found at Newtown or Columbine are really, really small.

Individuals who firmly believe that armed intruders are not a question of IF but WHEN and now huffing mightily.  (Offense number 2)

I am not minimizing that these incidents have happened.  They have. With tragic results and innocent lives lost unnecessarily.

But I'm not running in a blind panic believing for a minute that there are armed armies, not unlike the zombie hordes that live in the imaginations of so many, who are just lying in wait to storm PS 101 and create a killing field.

Those who did not read carefully what was written and believe that I am being merely an innocent are now offended.  (Offense number 3)

I do not believe that we need armed forces in our buildings and I believe that promoting laws that require such armed forces are misguided.

Those who believe that guns are the only answer to the madness are now offended.  (Offense number 4)

Will there be more incidents of guns being  toted by the angry and the mad and will some of those guns find their way into school buildings?  Perhaps.  But I do not believe that such a scenario is as inevitable as the NRA and the panicked would have you believe.

Those who believe that I don't put the safety of kids first are now offended.  (Offense number 5)

No one has convinced me that introducing weapons into a school building will create a safer environment.  I work in a high school.  I've seen behaviors of the mentally ill, the suicidal and the goofballs who might think that getting a hold of a gun and waving it around would be a good idea.  Using the math, the more guns in a school, the MORE likely it is for there to be incidents, accidental or intentional, where guns go off and people are killed or injured.

Those who believe that we cannot train people to work with guns safely have now branded me a gun hater.  (Offense number 6)

Unless the NRA, who gains by more gun sales and interest in guns, is willing to put its money where its mouth is and actually fund these gun toting protectors of the schools, then those hired to patrol the schools will most likely be those hired at minimum wage and who cannot get better jobs.

Those who believe that I don't want to support the local economy are now offended.  (Offense number 7)

Former policemen and military personal may be available, but forgive me if I happen to believe that their training (great in weapons, seeing everyone else as a potential perpetrator) might not be the best group to have in a school building where kids often act in ways that may be construed by some as threatening when they are, in actuality, merely goofy.

Those who believe that I am anti military and anti police are now offended.  (Offense number 8)

Perhaps it is time to step back and take a deep breath about protecting our school buildings.  At the moment, our new normal includes having all doors locked and closed.  That, we have been told by the police, will keep armed intruders out and the school population safe.

But what if the intruder isn't an intruder after all?  What if the gun is in the room?  If the door is locked and no one can get out, then the locked room becomes a barrel in which to shoot the innocent.

I appreciate that the police are working with their training and mindset.  But the police prefer to work with their clientele kept in cuffs or behind bars.  Students are not that clientele.  Creating an armed encampment to keep them safe creates a mindset that this is how society should be kept.  If you can't see the problem with that, I pity you.

And now I have offended those who believe that whatever the police say we ought to do is what we must do.  Ever heard of a police state?  It is ironic that those who scream the most about the second amendment are the same folks who want a police state in our school buildings. 

And now I've offended the conservatives.  (Offense number 9)

Banning gun ownership is not the answer.  Barricading schools with armed guards is not either.  We need to step back, take a deep breath and institute some common sense protections into our schools without turning them into armed encampments.

Ok, that should just about wrap up offending everyone else.  (Offense number 10)