First, stop right now and say a prayer—or send love and light if you're not the religious type—to the victims of the First Baptist Church massacre in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Yet again, totally innocent people got up Sunday morning like every other day and will never come home again. I'm willing to give everyone now screeching about gun control the benefit of the doubt that their first reaction was concern for the victims and their loved ones. Now, let's move on.
If we can't stop terrorists from getting access to trucks, how on the good green earth are we going to stop evil people from getting access to the 300 million guns already in circulation in the U.S.? If we had done things a little differently for the last 240 years, we might have different options, but the gun horse left the barn a long time ago.
We’re already choking on gun control laws that aren’t followed (are you listening, Air Force?) or that sinister and/or disturbed parties care not one whit about: criminals, the evil who are sane, and the mentally ill who have homicidal intentions. Either they pass their background checks with flying colors, or they obtain firearms illegally. What a travesty to focus on guns.
Also a travesty is comparing America to other countries with stricter gun control laws and lower incidence of gun violence. That’s like comparing an A-student who is taking one class with a B- or even C- student who is taking four classes and working full-time. No other country is as diverse, complex, and free as we are. If someone starts with a comparison between us and Canada or us and Sweden, don’t waste your time engaging. They and their ideological blinders are the real problem.
If they really cared about the victims of mass shootings, they would tell the truth about the problem. You can’t solve a problem you don’t define it accurately. Persisting in defining mass shootings as a gun control problem is its own kind of evil because it virtually guarantees more of them. While the self-appointed Do Gooders are patting themselves on the back that they’re not conservatives, future mass shooters are passing background checks or obtaining firearms illegally.
So what is the real problem? There are several, and they all reduce to a society in chaos.
Let’s start with the rule of law or lack thereof. We have whole states suing the federal government to protect their right to harbor criminal illegal aliens. We have millions of Americans declaring that entering our country illegally is just a baby crime, i.e., not really a crime at all, and that we can’t refer to people here illegally as “illegal” because it hurts their feelings.
College administrators cancel conservative speakers because of “safety” concerns instead of arresting students (and others) who commit violence. Besides marginalizing conservative ideas—let alone facts, which don’t care about your feelings by the way—they infantilize a generation of young people who will have nervous breakdowns in the real world when life happens.
Then there’s the dissolution of marriage, and I don’t mean gay marriage, which is an entirely different article. I mean the strident feminism of women who declare they don’t need men and the poisonous message to men that their masculinity is “toxic.” I mean perpetual Peter Pans who don’t want to take on the work required in a healthy marriage because they’ve been spoiled by overly permissive parents who want first and foremost to be their friends. I mean young women who are duped, despite all evidence to the contrary, that they are just like men, and that meaningless sex will enrich their lives and add to their self-esteem.
Along with the hit on marriage comes the hit on having children. The irreligious see no reason for having children other than fulfillment of personal desire, which personal desire—especially among women who have focused on their careers until it is too late—often excludes wiping runny noses and being too tired for sex. Parenthood has a way of pushing selfishness to the side because that is, in fact, one of its purposes. A society without a strong commitment to the obligation of raising children, and raising them to be responsible citizens, sooner or later revolves around self-absorption. Keeping up with the Kardashians much?
Lastly, race-baiters, trans activists, and Antifa operate with a fanatical zeal that would put any despot to shame. Slashing and burning a self-righteous, politically correct path, they systematically weaken the very institutions that are the foundation of our society: religion, law enforcement, the traditional family, civil discourse, freedom of speech and assembly (not to mention thought), and Western civilization itself with its classical European roots and values.
Let’s do some stage two thinking. If we continue destroying the foundational structures of our society, will that likely lead to less gun violence? If we eviscerate the traditional family, and demonize it along the way, will fewer children be raised without fathers? Will children raised without fathers be less likely to join violent gangs? If we coddle spoiled and entitled young people to protect them from the free exchange of ideas, will the future leaders of America be more qualified to grapple with complex problems like mass shootings? If we discourage good people from entering law enforcement because they don’t want a target on their professional and personal backs, will our society be safer?
Unless we solve some of the above, more gun control won’t make a dent in mass shootings. Cain slew Abel with a rock. It’s not a gun problem.