There is quite a debate raging theses days regarding gun control. Many, with the best intentions believe that stricter gun control will make our country safer. If that is true then Chicago and Washington, D.C. should be safest cities in the U.S. They have the strictest gun controls. The debate rages and no one seems to be really thinking about the real issues, the real problem.
Gun control is a private property issue not an answer to reducing violence. Is it gun control we want or less violence? We want less violence of course. Is anyone really thinking about why we have such a violent society? I would like to suggest some causes for a violent society. In 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States of America legalized abortion. Many at the time suggested we were headed down a long slippery slope that leads where no one wants to go. Since 1973 55 million babies have been aborted in this country. What kind of society allows that to happen? Obviously a society that has lost all respect for the value of human life.
Consider the kinds of movies we watch and the kind of television we watch. It is violent. Gun violence is shown daily. The kind of violence that seldom really happens, but is celebrated as normative on film. We have grown insensitive to such violence and how it indicates our society's devaluing of human life.
What kind of video games do your children play. I have watched my grandchildren play some games where the object is to kill as many people as possible before they kill you. Oh, its make-believe we tell ourselves. Yet, I wonder if children are just being numbed to the reality of violence.
School shootings have challenged our culture on a whole new level. Children are bullied until they can take no more and they go on a rampage. Bullies don't just happen. They are produced by other bullies. Those bullies may be a parent, a sibling, a neighbor, or television, movies, and video games to mention a few.
Where are the bullies' parents? Where are the parents of children being bullied? How about teachers, where are they when children are bullied? I remember how bullies were dealt with in my school days. The principle had a big paddle that he displayed prominently in his office. When he used it he kept his door open and the sound echoed down the halls. Oh what needless violence! No one was ever shot by another student in my schools. Interesting.
We have the Affordable Health Care Act that is slowly unfolding in this nation. We are beginning to see that there is simply not enough money to take care of everyone as they want to be cared for. The day will come when a panel will decide who has a valuable life and who does not. Older Americans will ultimately be denied extensive health care because we just cannot justify the cost. Profoundly disabled will also come under scrutiny and will simply be denied costly care because of the expense.
Look at who we have become in the guise of personal choice.
Younger people cannot distinguish between make believe violence and real violence. Our urban centers are so violent that children see murders every day. They are so desensitized that they commit violent acts against their own peers and wonder what is wrong with it. Abortion is so commonplace that women are told it is their "right." Forget the "rights" of the baby. Unborn babies are not real people they are just fetuses.
Where did all of this begin and when will it end?
It began with "the fall" recorded in Genesis 3, the first book of the Bible, and will end when Jesus returns, the final promise of the Bible. In the meantime maybe some common sense can be applied.
