OK. We’ve got two new shootings in the books, and, surprise, surprise, leftist politicians and activists are rushing to blame President Trump and conservatives.
Conservatives, who are saddled with the worst marketing department in the history of marketing, are going in a different direction, targeting mental illness.
But I think they’re both wrong. To me, the answer is obvious: it’s our declining culture.
For the last 50 years (give or take), our culture has been devaluing life, making fun of our moral codes, running the Ten Commandments out of town, and inundating our kids with sex, violence, and anything that makes them feel good: free of consequences!
What do we expect? And the evidence is not hard to find.
Guns and America have had a long history and close relationship. People are allowed to have guns to prevent tyranny from our government. The Framers of our Constitution knew that humanity is prone to corruption, and this was the safeguard against government takeover.
Guns were intended to prevent America from being like, well, any other country in the world that has known dictatorship.
Guns were a storied part of Western expansion. Everyone had them, and had access to them. Guns were legal during the Great Depression; a time when real poverty (not like the “poverty” of today) ran rampant. Guns have been legal, plentiful, and accessible all through American history. And even more accessible before the last 30 years.
Yet, how many mass shootings were there? How many kids shot and killed other kids?
If a kid wanted to get a gun and kill someone, it was easy to do up until the last 30 some years. Yet it didn’t happen.
There was more racism then than now, as well. So if we’re going to blame “white supremacy,” that easily refuted.
You could say the type of gun being used is more powerful. But we had access to powerful enough guns years ago, too.
We could go on, but all you’d be left with is culture. Kids don’t respect life. They don’t respect adults. And they don’t respect each other. Not as much as they used to. Not as much as when adults demanded it of them.
And prior to the internet, the sense of community among kids was greater than it is now. Sure, there were still kids on the outside looking in, but kids, in general, visited each other and spoke, in person. There was more social interaction. There was less isolation.
The cultural decline is easy to see, and the more and more common mass shootings are one of the results. Shooters just don’t see the value in the lives they’re taking, or their own.
We can make fun of “family values” or the supposed “stodgy” nature of conservatives, but mass shootings were almost unheard of when cultural mores were strong.
When we’re ready to address the real cause of mass shootings, this is what we’ll all be discussing.
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