The article below is a reprint that was written after the deadliest high shooting in U.S. history at Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, 2018 in Parkland Florida. Parkland left 17 dead, surpassing even the 15 dead from Columbine. Still, few are addressing the root cause of these diabolical acts. Even most conservative media refuse to deal with the underlying reason for violence in our culture. There will be more El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio’s in our future, just as there was Parkland 18 months ago.
Since the original article was written, a group in the United Kingdom by the name of Yakult UK, conducted a poll (released August 5, 2019) and found 80 % of people across all ages felt as if they were living without a purpose. A staggering 89 % of youth from the ages 18-29 (Gen Z) felt as if their lives were meaningless and without purpose.
At the moment, the issue of guns surfaces in many conversations with small or large groups of people. Just about everyone has an opinion and it is passionate. Those conversations will continue far into the future because another Nikolas Cruz (whose last name means Cross in Spanish) is on the near horizon. Whether or not the massacre of Parkland in Florida is a turning point in the debate is to be determined, but if history is our guide, it will be forgotten. What has amazed me is how the media on both sides of the issue are dealing with “gun control” in a very superficial manner. No one seems to be addressing the root causes of violence as the debate isn’t bringing us any closer to actually solving the underlying problem.
Is anyone addressing the fact that of the 27 deadliest mass shooters in American history, 26 boys committing these crimes were raised since childhood without a biological father in the home? The single issue of a boy without a father in the home is the glaring statistic that no one is talking about in the mainstream media. However, it was a CNN reporter for the Federalist by the name of Peter Hasson who recently tallied the fact that 96.3 percent of mass shooters share this common trait. Boys and girls need fathers as much as they need mothers, as each parent has a beautiful and wonderful role ordained by God. To make matters worse, many liberals continue to push social policies removing the father from the home as an authority figure, and most often depict him as the bumbling village idiot on film.
Many speak of more security in schools, more scrutiny of who gets a gun, what constitutes mental illness, age limits, size of the clip, bullets per second, bump stocks, easy access to guns, the interpretation of the Constitution, gun free zones, what comprises liberty and freedom, and so forth. The way the Constitution is written and interpreted by many people, there will be no easy or peaceful compromise.
I am not sure that Jesus would be on CNN or Fox News addressing the gun debate. When He walked the earth He addressed the state of our souls in the light of Divine Truth. The roots of violence that we see in our streets and schools are to be found first in our hearts. Saint Teresa of Calcutta was often quoted saying that “If there is violence in the womb, there will be violence in the streets.” Saint John Paul II said on many occasions “A nation that kills its own children is a nation without hope.”
The solutions being bandied about in the gun debate are just ointment on the existing wound of our sinful culture. They are not treating the root cause of the problem. I have heard some say in conversations that going to the root of the issue will no longer work due to diversity and other civil concerns. If that is the case, there is no solution to the violence and dysfunction in the culture from just about anyone in the media, so why not try the obvious one that is THE ANSWER. If a person has cancer, it cannot be cordially coaxed out, it must be driven out. Will it take more blood in the schools and streets, so that people will demand that God be welcomed back in the classroom?
Maybe concerned educators and citizens should start demanding the ONLY way to stop this carnage which is for faith to be restored in the classroom. Several years ago I saw a story where a warden in a men’s prison provided every single prisoner with a Father’s Day card and a stamp. Not one prisoner sent the card.
Until we start to address the following we will not get to the root cause of gun violence.
A. The billions of hours people (not just kids anymore) spend playing violent video games originally designed for military use in combat situations;
B. All forms of psychiatric drugs kids are ingesting at alarming rates;
C. Music lyrics that are outright violent and sexual;
D. A culture of violence on TV and all forms of media breeding a lack of compassion;
E. A desensitization of youth to human pain and suffering;
F. The proliferation of pornography on the internet available to a young child;
G. Homes with no fathers;
H. Homes with a mentally, emotionally, or physically absent father and/or mother, where rarely a family meal is shared,
I. Multiple billions (there are a thousand million in a billon) of hours which youth have played banal, and time sapping video games (where they are now in their mid to late 30’s doing the same thing they did as teenagers);
J. Addictive behavior such as pornography, drugs, alcohol, and incessant media habits that rewire a person’s neural pathways;
K. A total lack of spiritual formation and instead pursuing immediate gratification. (If there is any spiritual formation, it is often so ill-formed teaching it makes no sense to them in their soul);
L. Parents taking their child’s side in disciplinary issues at school;
M. Removal from public education of any moral or philosophical compass to society that has been beneficial to mankind for millennia:
N. Absent parents. (The day where a school board gets more calls than any day in the year is when school is cancelled due to snow. Why? Because it disrupts a parents work schedule. Teachers have become baby sitters as much as they are educators and they know it);
O. Teachers who have quit disciplining students because often higher administration will support the parents so the schools won’t have to deal with hassles and potential lawsuits;
P. Many youth who see no purpose in their lives, and they lack family connectedness;
Q. An LGBTQ carnal and sinful culture proliferating like a spring rose in a life without boundaries, and kids without a grounded moral structure;
R. Silence from the vast number of pulpits in America of all faiths and denominations on sin and its consequences or outright rejection of biblical and Christian thought;
S. The virulent diabolical agenda to remove God from the public square.
Guns are not the problem — a lack of values in our culture is the problem. The people who use guns as a weapon incorrectly are the problem. Until a value-based education is restored, we will see a great deal more violence because two generations of people haven’t had any Christian spirituality or formation in their lives.
Spiritual things have been stripped from thought and action in our culture. The name Nikolas Cruz of Parkland doesn’t matter because just like him there are tens of millions of these wounded lost souls walking the hallways today, albeit not many as violent as Cruz. The name Cruz is not important because the shooters in these heinous crimes share nearly identical emotional and psychological profiles. Cruz as others to come has the profile of PURE RAGE against the system because they cannot find meaning in their life. After the killing spree he was so casual that he sauntered to the local McDonald’s and had a hamburger. This young man has been so desensitized to God’s love and a plan for his life as God intended, that he is void of human emotion other than hate and rage, and a complete blank slate spiritually.
What these people have not received is love at home. They are acting out in anger, irrespective of all income brackets and social strata throughout the land. These people are screaming to be noticed at any cost and are desperately in search for a purpose for living. Prayers are desperately needed for our homes. Invite God back into our homes and schools, and the country will heal itself. It will take a great deal more blood to bring about change from our present spiritual neglect.
JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU