Sounds obvious, but maybe it isn't so obvious. Maybe we have forgotten what this means.
The tragedy that took place at Sandy Hook was a horrific act of evil. Sadly these random violent acts have become too common. The outpouring of emotions and demands for solutions to prevent these tragedies is wholly appropriate. Unfortunately, the answers and solutions we seek are not easy.
The gun debate is a difficult debate. I do not own a gun, I am not a member of the NRA, and I will probably never own a gun. That is my choice. The reality is that the 2nd amendment of the Bill of Rights clearly states the right to bear arms. Why did our founding fathers consider this important? To protect the citizens from the tyranny of government.
The tyranny of government is as prevalent today as it was at our nations founding. Oppressive regimes throughout modern history, including the holocaust have killed millions. Even our own government has targeted and killed its citizenry from events such as the Kent State shootings to several occurrences of police shooting unarmed civilians. It has happened, and it has been efficiently rationalized away. And unprotected by our nation's rights, even the current president has blood on his hands of dozens of innocent children killed by drone attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The reality is, as much as one may disagree with the 2nd amendment, it is part of the fabric of our country, and in 236 years we have been a republic free of tyranny.
The other reality is that there are now over 300 million guns owned by citizens in the United States. The notion that gun laws will somehow drastically shift the situation is not realistic. There are a significantly higher number of violent crimes committed with guns in the US vs other nations. Most of these crimes are committed with handguns. A ban on assault rifles will not change the situation. Registration of guns will not change anything because there are already too many guns in the system. In many cases, mass shootings have been with guns obtained from relatives as was the case with Sandy Hook.
Banning guns would be impossible. It would require martial law, potentially cause a civil war, and create thousands of Waco, TX replays across the nation.
Even without guns these horrific crimes occur. In 1927, in Bath, MI, a man detonated 600 lbs of dynamite in a school killing 45 people including 38 school children. Planned school massacres that have been stopped have often involved an arsenal of IEDs in the form of pipe bombs.
Armed guards outside schools is a logistically and nearly impossible plan to implement. Certainly they will not guarantee the safety of children. Aside from school shootings, there are already too many instances of bullying and sexual assaults by teachers. We need to figure out how to protect our children in the school as well.
So what do we do? We have a cultural crisis. We have glorified killing through movies, books, and video games. The poorest of our society in our urban areas have become gripped by violent generational crime but they are so segregated from the rest of society, they have become statistics in the evening news report. We have become desensitized to killing and violence to the point that we are only appalled when it happens in our backyard vs the streets of south Chicago.
Enough is enough. It is time for us to collectively say that killing and the glorification of killing is wrong. We need to take individual responsibility to banish violence from our lives, our family's lives and our communities by standing up and making the simple statement that killing and the glorification of killing is wrong.
This may be viewed as a naive and simplistic approach, but I would challenge someone to come up with a better solution. We live in a viral global community. We have the power to create change today faster than anytime in human history.
So start today. Make the declaration that killing and the glorification of killing is wrong. Try it. Since the beginning of the Sandy Hook tragedy and all the past horrific crimes and mass shootings, I have never heard a leader, government official, or community make this simple statement.
Assuming that everyone believes killing is wrong apparently is not working.
