Guns Aren’t Radically Deadlier Than They Were 50 Years Ago, But Our Sick Culture

We need to address the rot we’ve sown for our children to grow up in, and no amount of blaming firearms for our culture’s depravity is going to change that.

I don’t pretend to understand the mind of someone that would shoot a little child… or an innocent adult, for that matter. But I do see what I regard as some influences that might produce that mentality.

Rap music is one. Many of the “songs” don’t present the usual heartbreak, joyful experience, fun time or other common human experience that most music offers. What we hear, when we hear it, is a celebration and promotion of gang culture, having a firearm as a symbol of manhood and/or prestige, drugs, sex, defending turf, almost nothing but anti-social behavior.

Another is abortion. Abortion is not just an obscure and private medical procedure utilized in emergencies or extreme conditions; it, too, is a culture. Abortion is worshiped and celebrated and when an argument is made against it, the defense is that the convenience and culture of the “host” overrides the rights of the developing life. The fact that the embryo IS life is intuitive; that reality cannot be denied (well, not factually) but the only defense of the use of abortion to erase an error of judgement is with the deduction being that life, when it gets in the way, is expendable. Life that gets in the way of a good time, settling an emotional score or simply attracting attention can justifiably be snuffed out. Life is worthless.

The left’s destruction of civil discourse has led to the acceptance of the use of intimidation, threats or even violence to make a point or suppress another. The left has a problem generating support their ideology due to it not producing anything positive or useful. So, it is necessary for them to present the opposition as less than worthy life, dispensable, vile, racist, homophobic, an existential threat. During the Trump term, the only way sufficient hatred for him and his administration could be generated was to invent vile reasons to hate him, then promote those reasons endlessly. How much of a leap would it be to regard it a service to humanity to take any one of those impediments to the leftist progressive dream out? That was, after all, how the Holocaust was justified.

We also have the influence of COVID. Children were kept in isolation for an entire year. I don’t exactly fully understand it, but this has been considered a severe mental blow to children; but there was another element. With children video learning at home, we got a view of some of the curriculum. It turns out that in many cases, children were being taught that skin color was an indication of evil intent and actions. Now, if those teachings had been that which society has worked so hard to finally eliminate, this would be an onerous and disgusting lesson, but the tables had been turned. Children were being taught that WHITE skin color indicated a person that was intrinsically racist, oppressive, violent and hateful. It was historic and documented, they were told. We wouldn’t have even known of this without home schooling and the left as fought tooth and nail to defend it.

Taking all this into account, it is surprising these horrific crimes don’t happen more often, though in cities where Democrats control all the levers of power, it happens on a smaller scale every weekend, if not every day. But, not being as politically useful as the slaughter of innocent children, those deaths are mere blurbs in an overall news coverage, if covered at all.

Life has been rendered valueless. Loss of a parking space, being the butt of a joke, someone not realizing what “pronoun” one identifies as or lack of respect for the “right de jour” justifies murder today. I don’t know how that mentality can be changed or how long it would take to change it, but be better start working on it pretty soon. For sure, removing the REAL right of self defense from those left twisting in the wind by an impotent government is most certainly NOT the answer.

Twelve Questions to Consider Regarding Mass Shootings

To prevent more mass shootings, many demand more gun control laws. But do these laws prevent such massacres or address their root causes? Here are 12 questions to ponder.

First, why do almost all U.S. mass shootings occur in “gun-free zones”? Indeed, it’s hard to name any that have not. The 2015 Charleston mass-murderer apparently targeted a church instead of a school partly because the school had security – but South Carolina banned guns in church. Would any of us put a sign in our yard saying, “This is a gun-free home”?

Second, can an evil person using a gun to murder be stopped by anyone other than a good person using a gun? In the December, 2019 Texas church shooting, the murderer was prevented from murdering many times more than his two victims by a good parishioner with a gun who shot him in six seconds. Many other mass murders have been similarly stopped.

Third, with all the many thousands of city, county, state, and federal gun control laws we’ve had for many decades, how realistic is it that any new ones will make a difference? Very few guns used in crime are ever legally bought since, by definition, criminals don’t obey laws.

Fourth, for those who want to ban entire classes of guns, how well did America’s prohibition of alcohol from 1920 to 1933 prevent Americans from getting booze? Even with a constitutional amendment and an unprecedented national effort to completely ban the sale of this dangerous drug, “the noble crusade” was an abject failure that corrupted law enforcement on a massive scale. By far the biggest beneficiaries of prohibition were bootleggers made fabulously wealthy like Al Capone who said, “All I do is supply a demand.”

Fifth, how well has our war on drugs prevented people from getting them? This 52-year effort has spent a trillion-plus tax dollars stopping record amounts of drugs at the border and creating by far the world’s biggest prison population. Yet illegal drugs remain plentiful and widely used.

Sixth, how well have our immigration laws prevented illegal aliens from breaking into the country in recent decades? Despite presidents of both parties sending record numbers of guards to the border and deporting record numbers of illegal migrants, a 2018 Yale-MIT study showed we may have well over 20 million illegal aliens in this country.

Seventh, could the saturation press coverage prominently featuring the name and face of each mass-murderer actually encourage more such shootings? There is evidence that many mass-murderers seek such infamy. So, while reporting their crimes, why not deny these murderers the notoriety they crave and therefore reduce the temptation for other evil losers?

Eighth, can guns — or any inanimate object or substance — force anyone to use them sinfully? As the CATO Institute’s Robert Levy reported in 2011, each year the owners of 99.8 percent of American guns choose not to commit a crime with them. Indeed, do most drinkers drive drunk or commit other crimes under the influence? Since reckless driving kills about the same number of Americans each year as gunshot wounds, should we have more car control laws? Most all of us are fully equipped to be thieves, drug addicts, prostitutes, and murderers. But are we?

Ninth, how many mass-murderers have come from a two-parent family that regularly attended church or synagogue? Very few. Indeed, the data show children from single-parent homes are many times more likely to fall prey to the whole range of social pathologies. And how many folks who regularly went to Sunday School with you became violent criminals?

Tenth, is it really fair to blame mass shootings on mental illness? Does this not insult the vast majority of mentally ill folks who are never violent? So what leads a tiny minority to turn homicidal? Again, could it be the lack of a loving, two-parent, church-going home that proactively seeks prompt medical treatment for a troubled family member?

Eleventh, could it be that mass shootings are really symptomatic of deeper-rooted and far more socially cancerous spiritual, cultural, and family problems? In the 1950s, many high school students brought rifles to school for marksmanship classes – and without school shootings.

Twelfth, how effective is government at solving spiritual, cultural, and family problems? The state is quite good at building roads, bridges, schools, and warships, but what is its record at putting America’s broken Humpty Dumpty family and Judeo-Christian culture back together again? Perhaps the ultimate solution to mass shootings – and most of our problems – is for we Americans to dedicate ourselves to our own spiritual and family renewal since, as President Dwight Eisenhower understood, “Laws cannot change what is in people’s hearts and minds.”