Under Pressure...

Found this article online, and thought it was brilliant.

Enjoy.

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By Noah Lotte

                For the politicians on Capitol Hill, I have yet another issue to bring to the table. I realize that you are extremely busy debating immigration and soundly arguing over gun control, however, recent events beg your attention elsewhere. To my fellow Americans, I recognize that we all struggle to meet our mortgage payments, much less figure out how much in taxes we actually do owe the government, but the time has come for us to recognize the newest threat to our liberties and freedoms.

                I have been deeply saddened the last week, praying for the families of those killed and maimed by the dual explosions at the Boston Marathon.  I dearly hope that this atrocity will never be forgotten and shall never be repeated. We must do our utmost to prevent such a bombing from ever occurring in the future. Examining the sequence of events that brought about the attack, it is clear what course of action we must take.

                For the sake of our liberties and our national security, I believe that legislation must be passed to ban the use and sale of pressure cookers. It was these everyday items that were used in the bombings, and had the terrorists been unable to access the cookers, these attacks could have well been prevented.  We must remove these tools of destruction from our homes and from our society. There will always be groups opposed to such legislation, but we cannot afford to let our political opinion stand in the way of safety. At the very least, we must require extensive background checks for anyone attempting to purchase a pressure cooker. Allowing a pressure cooker to fall into the wrong hands will only have the same consequences as those in Boston. It is our added civic duty to ensure that crazy aunt Matilda cannot unrestrictedly use pressure cookers as well.  Recognize we have just as much a duty to protect that nation as the government.

                In addition to background checks, we must also work to limit the amount of atmospheres pressure cookers can withstand. Currently, the average pressure cooker allows the user to build the pressure up to dangerous levels, as evidenced by the numerous pressure cooker accidents that have occurred in the last decade. Were we to limit the amount of pressure per cooker, we will reduce the potential devastation wreaked by accidental and purposeful explosions.

                My fellow countrymen, if I were the president and I knew this legislation would save one life, I would pass it. If I knew it would save a hundred lives, I would pass it.  But simply knowing the enormous danger that the unregulated use and purchase of pressure cookers poses to our society’s safety is enough.  We cannot afford to live in the past where these so-called “useful” items are freely accessible to anyone—if we are unsafe now, we may never have a future.

                Let us all put our signatures to this legislation and with our pressure protect the nation for our children.