Mass shootings are tragic, as is almost any criminal shooting occurrence. Loss of innocent life is not reversible. Families, loved ones, and friends all suffer when they happen. Something does need to be done, and it should involve common sense.
But not the common sense that the anti-Second Amendment crowd is espousing, which is further restrictions on the firearms rights of law-abiding citizens.
Any time a shooting happens, the anti-gun crowd immediately jumps on the “evil guns” bandwagon to politicize the issue. I find it disgusting that Burden and others have done this repeatedly, most often with the four that have occurred in the Los Angeles area in less than two weeks. True to form, Burden steps up to the podium to blame the evil guns less than 24 hours after the event. The only sincerity in his actions is the opportunity to further his anti-Second Amendment policies.
Last I checked, an inanimate object like a gun can’t jump up and kill anyone. It takes a person to do it. Same with a knife, a rock, a hammer, a rented truck, or a pressure cooker.
It also can’t be overlooked that many, if not most, of these shootings, are happening in the parts of the country with the most restrictive firearms laws. Yep, all those laws are working wonders to keep the citizens safe from harm – NOT! It is interesting to note that the areas where the people are the least self-governed are the areas that have the most laws. That makes sense, right? The problem is that criminals are not self-governed against any particular standard.
I hear and agree with the call for more mental health care and social workers, which is a welcome change from past shootings. Heck, I even heard NPR suggesting that we have a mental health issue to deal with rather than dwelling on “pass more (useless) gun laws.” It is long overdue. But our current administration and the media largely dwell on more firearms control laws which would be nothing more than band-aids if they did anything at all. More laws won’t help. Criminals don’t obey the law, which is why they are criminals. More firearms laws only punish and endanger law-abiding citizens.
More firearms legislation is nothing more than a band-aid and a political stunt to show “we are doing something.” The real issue is that they do not address the root cause of the problem, which is the question of how our society produces individuals willing to carry out these heinous acts. I’ll suggest here that the root cause of the violence problem and so many others we see in America today is that we have lost our moral baseline, our moral compass. When there is no moral baseline, there is no good, and there is no evil. I’m not advocating for any particular religion here, but I suggest that the Ten Commandments of the Christian faith have been and still are a good starting point.
Clearly, the shooters in these instances have a vastly different view of right and wrong from that of most of society. People today live in an environment where they feel unconstrained by morals, that anything goes if they think it is “right” to do.
People, especially younger ones, feel “entitled.” The basic family unit has all but been eliminated in some demographics. The divorce rate is over 50%. Bullying in schools is a frequent occurrence and is not effectively dealt with. Troubled adolescents are not dealt with through counseling and love but are drugged. The “war on drugs” is an abject failure. Biological human sexuality is being conflated with gender identity. Sexualization of children is widespread both in the classrooms and in public libraries and is being treated as “normal.” Explicit adult toys are now openly displayed in stores like Target, Walmart, and CVS, where anyone can see them, including children.
The country is so politically divided over numerous topics that collaboration and negotiation across party lines are next to impossible. Groups like the white supremacists and BLM think that violence is OK in order to support their warped agendas, and some of our leadership encourages this. It’s OK to steal $900 or less of stuff from Walmart or other retailers because there are no longer any consequences. Work ethic, pride in accomplishment, and accountability for actions are all but gone in much of the population. The media only reports fake news on both sides of the political spectrum – journalism has been replaced by indoctrination.
Too many have zero pride in their cities or towns and so do nothing to improve the situation in them. The government has overreached its authority many, many times in recent years, and it is getting worse. Many in America promote the proven ineffective model of socialism because it provides for “free stuff.”
These and more are all symptoms of the root cause of a lack of a moral baseline. We should be focussing our attention and our dollars on fixing society by re-establishing such a baseline that discourages rather than encourages the actions described above. It starts in our cities and towns. It starts with support groups. It starts with education. It starts with churches of all kinds. It starts with individuals being committed and accountable to themselves and their community to restoring America to the once great country it was. It starts with people understanding that choices have consequences. How about these ideas to start with?
1) Let’s enforce current firearms and other laws. If someone attempting to purchase a firearm through legal channels is found to be lying on their ATF Form 4473 (background check questionnaire), convict them of the felony they just committed. I won’t go into it here, but there are hundreds of federal and state firearms laws already in existence. I also won’t go into the whole debate about securing schools and arming teachers. Maybe another time. As a matter of fact, the firearms industry is one of if not the most highly regulated industries in the country. Yet firearms still fall into the hands of prohibited persons or, in many instances, someone who should be a prohibited person.
2) Let’s fund more drug rehabilitation and diversion programs. Arrest people for small amounts of drugs, and place them in jail or rehabilitation. Controlled drugs are also highly regulated, but the war on drugs has proven to be ineffective, exacerbated by the drug smuggling through our open borders. And now, many are advocating for the release of criminals convicted of drug crimes. We must focus on rehabilitation in some way other than what has happened so far because it is not working. The Just Say No campaign didn’t do much to solve the problem. People often turn to drugs when they have nowhere else to go. Our money would be well spent providing more programs to get criminals and gang members into jobs as productive members of society.
3) We need better and more readily available mental health programs. We send billions to other countries (witness Ukraine most recently), we waste millions on ineffectively dealing with an open southern border, we spend like a drunken sailor on social programs that produce no meaningful results, and we incentivize people to stay on welfare rather than get off of it. Why can’t we spend this much on improving our mental health care system in America?
4) In so many mass shooting incidents, the shooter was known to have issues. By his parents, his teachers, his friends… And nothing was done to address the potential problems that could result. Look at the six-year-old who recently shot his teacher. School administrators had been warned about the firearm three times and did not act. DHS is pushing the See Something, Say Something agenda regarding possible terrorist actions. It needs to be explicitly broadened to include suspicious or questionable activities that may lead to mass shootings. And once an individual is known to exhibit behaviors risky to others or themselves, we must act on it by providing cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) that helps them manage anger, exert self-control, and deal with anxiety. It was found in Liberia that providing CBT, job training, and a little cash (with accountability) to risky individuals resulted in a 50% reduction in violence and crime involving those individuals as far as 10 years out. [1]. The idea was so successful that variants of it are now being implemented in Chicago. This idea should be widely adopted.
5) Parents should be held accountable for their kid’s actions if they were aware there was an issue and did not act on it appropriately. That action could include having a discussion with your child to ask hard questions, seeking counseling for him/her, asking friends about any suspicious activity, monitoring social media sites… You know, be an involved parent.
6) We need more transparency between parents and what goes on in the classroom. Parents’ rights in this regard are a hot topic nationwide at the moment. Transparency is crucial for parents to know what is happening with their kids in school. Are they being bullied or bullying? Have they been sent to counseling, and if so, why? Has there been a marked change in a student’s behavior? All of these could be indicators that the parents, who should be the final say, need to take action.
7) We need to stop the media from sensationalizing shootings as it relates to the shooter. People need to know what happens, of course, and have a right to know in most instances. But let’s not dwell on the shooter making him/her seem like some sort of folk hero to motivate others who may be considering a crime.
There is a lot we could do that may actually help prevent firearms violence and crime in general. But no – we focus on the band-aids instead. You can’t fix a problem if you do not address the root cause.
[1] https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23141405/violence-crime-cbt-therapy- cash-shootings?fbclid=IwAR3wTfCuz0LWFTTCeD- J47S41rotZ2noYFfS4Cwq4YPFoWM8SAypbIlTwuk
