Ending the Violence

A consistent theme of my blog is that peacemaking is an essential part of sustainability. The most recent mass shooting of school children in Connecticut is so vile and unthinkable that I'm now wondering if we're going in the opposite direction.

Maybe, overall, we are moving to a more peaceful society, but we seem helpless when it comes to mentally sick, rage-filled humans who want to randomly kill others. As far as the social ills that cause this phenomena, members of the U.S. gun cult are quick to blame video games or the lack of mental health facilities for the problem. In truth, the massacre problem is caused by a collection of social failures, including the easy accessibility of brutally deadly firearms.

While I have no qualm with rifles used for hunting or target competition, I do think a handgun purchase should include a rigorous background check and mental health screening. Extended magazine clips, silencers, and semi-automatic weapons should be outlawed.

Unfortunately, the NRA has forced the door open on deadly firearms for so long that it's necessary for many to own a gun just to have protection against criminals. Often, legal guns are stolen and enter the evil underworld, where they are used to commit crimes.

I imagine one day some PR hack at NRA headquarters had a brilliant idea. "Let's just start a campaign to say that more guns are needed to protect us from all the guns." This policy, which is wonderful for gun manufacturers, is simply a violent race to the bottom. So, the suggestion here is that if you gave everyone in the U.S. a gun, we would have a safer country. And let's have guns at churches and schools to protect us from the wackos who indiscriminately murder. But then the bad guys will start getting bigger, more powerful guns, so the good guys will need to get more deadly weapons. When the U.S. economy starts seriously melting down and people become hungry and desperate, what is going to happen then?

Solution

The only solution I can see to this madness is to change the culture and our attitudes toward violence. People who are at-risk need to be better identified and given help. Often, just a little love or attention can keep someone from going down a bad path. The violence in the media and in video games needs to be shunned. And those who boast about their gun collections need to be shunned as well by the more peaceful members of society. The memes and cultural ideas that we have about violence simply needs to shift.

Christianity

Ahhhh, excuse me but I have read the New Testament several times and Christianity seems like a pretty pacifist religion to me. Of course, in the Old Testament, God was a more butt-kicking, violent being, but he suddenly gets warm and fuzzy in the gospels. Yet, some of the biggest pro-gun advocates I know are also very Christian. This tells me two things: First, you really don't have faith that your deity will protect you, and, secondly, you are cherry-picking what you want to follow in the Bible.  In regards to the people waving a Bible in one hand and a gun in another, your credibility is lost with me.

Oh, and I need to comment on the crazy things religious people have said since the shootings. I've heard things like "it's because we took God out of the schools," or "it's because of gay marriage, abortion, and our turning away from God." It never enters their mind that the problem could be the easy accessibility to assault weapons, or the NRA's ability to control Congress. No, that has nothing to do with it — God is simply PISSED at us because Jim and John got married.

The Hope for Common Sense

I watched part of the NRA press conference given by the organization's CEO, Wayne LaPierre. The organization has become so brazen and delusional that it's mind-boggling. Essentially, the NRA is wanting us to have an armed guard at every school in the nation to protect our children from the very policies that the NRA promotes.

The NRA is a powerful organization now, but I think as these mass murders continue there will be more anti-gun advocates, and eventually organizations promoting peace and reasonable gun laws will break the back of the NRA. My hope, as with everything else, is that good will simply overwhelm and overtake evil and violence.

Conclusion

Now that I'm totally disgusted with the NRA's Mr. LaPierre I am going to start giving money to the Brady Campaign. I do not know how we are going to move to a truly peaceful society because it appears that we are going in the opposite direction. But if we could trade guns for hugs and love, I know that would go a long way. Handguns simply have one function — killing. They have no place is a peace-loving society.

I have only personally known one person in all my life who was murdered. As it turns out, he was murdered with his own gun. I'm sure he felt his guns would protect him, but in his case things didn't work out as expected.


Photo credit: h.koppdelaney / Foter / CC BY-ND