…Facebook was a social network? Where people didn’t just post their political opinions with zero tact, zero respect for the opinions of others, and zero repercussions? Me neither.

Last I checked, a social network was a place for friends to socialize, regardless of physical distance from each other. A place for old high school buddies to catch up, college roommates to post references to old inside jokes to giggle at, and tweens to continue to communicate after they’ve lost their phone privileges for exorbitant texting. But no more, and it’s pissing me off.

Now Facebook has become a gymnasium where people impotently shout their opinions and wave about inflammatory photos with intolerant slogans. It has become a shoddy substitute for a political arena. It has become, frankly, a pile of crap. That’s putting it mildly, mind you.

I’ll freely admit that I’ve never seen The Social Network, but I’m fairly sure that Facebook started at… Harvard, I believe it was… as a way for students to connect with each other in a super condensed version of e-mail. Students could organize meetings, share assignments, and probably cheat on same assignments in certain cases. I strongly doubt that you’d have seen even a third of the political shouting matches in those times as what has proliferated my news feed, especially in regard to the multiple events of the last year.

Now, I’m not saying that I’m innocent of all wrongdoing, I myself have occasionally injected my political opinion into the content of my newsfeed. Very recently I posed a sociological question that I regretted very much once it dissolved into a campaign of smear comments between two people who have never met each other, growing more inflammatory until they finally burned themselves out. I have great respect for both of these individuals which I am sorry to say was tarnished slightly by their conduct.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Internet.

None of this is helped by the apparently controversial gun control legislation that the governor of New York is pushing in response to the numerous shootings of the past year. Coming from a heavily conservative area and a hometown built around a gun factory – for the record, it also once made typewriters, a much more powerful invention, in my opinion – I have quite a few Facebook ‘friends’ who feel quite strongly about this topic, in an extremely negative and pessimistic way. Most comments made have been centralized around the 2nd Amendment, how unconstitutional the legislation is, and a general fear of a totalitarian future.

(Before I respond with my personal opinion, I want to make something crystal clear: I’m not against people having their own opinion. I’m saying there’s a time and a place for it. Neither of which are on Facebook. If you truly feel so strongly, get a blog. Write about it. Make it a voluntary action for people to read it, don’t ambush and spam their newsfeed with your opinions. I have a link to my blog – the one you’re reading – automatically posted to my Facebook and Twitter feeds each time I click “Publish Post”. Am I forcing any of you to read this? No. But, if this entire rant was sprawled out on a newsfeed, it’d be pretty hard to skim past without catching a little bit of what I’m saying, whether or not you cared or agreed. As a student of journalism and communication, I feel that freedom of speech is one of, if not the, most important rights we are able to exercise as American citizens. However, I also feel we have an implicit freedom from the unwanted opinions of others on what is supposed to be a gathering place for friends. What follows from this point on is simply my unwanted opinion in its proper place.)

In response to those on my newsfeed who fear losing their rights: grow up. Seriously, you’re being ridiculous. An automatic rifle, in a civilized society, is completely unnecessary for a private citizen to possess. Law enforcement, the military, sure, but a private citizen? An average Joe, who under the worst case plausible scenario might have to defend his home against one or two guys in ski masks, doesn’t need more than a handgun in which a seven-round magazine – if used properly – is more than sufficient. If it’s an outside force you’re worried about, first off you’ve seen Red Dawn too many times, and second we will all be immediately drafted into the military if we’re ever attacked in that magnitude, and supplied with automatic weapons, so what’s the big deal?

To those who fear too many government restrictions, let me present you with this argument. Do we care about the age restrictions on operating a motor vehicle? No? And why is that? Because cars are DANGEROUS. Well, I hate to tell you this, but so are guns. And to those who are responding with, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” that’s a fair point, but having an assault rifle sure makes it a lot easier to kill a lot of people than a simple handgun does.

I’m not saying that guns are bad. I’m saying that, like with every other dangerous thing, we need to keep a closer eye on them.

And I’m also saying that we need to keep our social lives where they belong, and our political views elsewhere. If you’ve stayed with me this long, congratulations. I wish I could have provided you with a happier, friendlier reading experience, but as of late I find it rather easy to get mad. As a bit of recompense, here is a Googled picture of a Westie puppy.

Me no likey boom-booms. Boom-booms scawy.

Thank you for your time.