There are no easy answers to tragedies like Newtown, Columbine, Aurora, etc. Popular sentiment seems to be blame the means not the underlying cause. When one of our kids reaches adulthood and decides it’s just not worth it, we have failed. If he or she takes innocent lives along with their own, that failure becomes epic. Remove firearms from the equation and the twisted mind will find another way to achieve its goal. Arson, diesel fuel and fertilizer, steal the potassium brick from the chemistry lab and chunk it in water – the possible methods are endless. It is impossible to anticipate all the possible scenarios and remove the means.
What are we to do if we can’t destroy the tools of the madman? We must keep him from going mad to start with. It shouldn’t be possible to exist within a community and hold such darkness within your heart. Such are the manifestations of the moral decline of our society: we have created the monsters within our midst. Newtown is our own fault. At some point in a child’s life we gave up on him, wrote him off as a lost cause. He slipped into the immoral slime that surrounds us and nobody noticed. We infuse young minds with all types of poison, hundreds of channels void of meaning, and wonder how such tragedy could be triggered. Where could the inspiration come from? For starters all three major networks are airing special reports tonight on our latest school shooting.
Since the beginning of time the human condition has been defined by the struggle between good and evil. We lost a young mind to the dark side and our collective failure cost us the future of twenty more. Was it really a gun that enabled the deed? Would it have been any less of a loss had he simply skidded through a crosswalk or slammed his car into a school bus? When we neglect our children we teach them that life is somehow less than precious.
Never give up. Surround them with love, family, community. Teach honor and respect.
I hurt for the families and friends of the lost and for those who knew the troubled soul that shot his mother and then went on a rampage before taking his own life.
I hope that my own never come face to face with the wolf and I pray that I will recognize him should he appear.
Semper vigilans.
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Andi read this to me while preparing Sunday Breakfast.
The unfortunate outcome of this and other trageties like this will be long and boring pontification about the symtoms not the illness. The illness is a government that wishes to talk instead of act.
We have more laws than we have sense. The same people that scream for laws and regulations are the same people that plead for and excuse the acts of villians. Maybe it comes down to too many soccer players – for years children are taught that everybody plays and gets a trophy – it can end in a tie. Then you turn 21 and you only get paid for winning.
So, maybe we should pass laws the abolish games ending in ties. Maybe, even rules that would recognizes and reward acheivers. What about paying based on performance instead of time? The illegal immigrants get paid on bricks laid not the hours worked. I know you are familiar with the northeast; maybe, we could shut down the EPA and reopen the factories that once lined the New England coast. This might give the young a hope of providing for themsslves – a job instead of food stamps.
Just thoughts.
SKM
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