I have never owned a rifle or a handgun. I have never worked for, or received a payment of any kind from, a gun manufacturer. I am not opposed to some changes in the gun laws in the States. I believe that some changes could be made that would be helpful, without ending up at the extreme end where the people would be totally disarmed and therefore at the mercy of an oppressive government.
My father grew up at a time and in a region where every home had a gun and most had several. When his grandfather wanted to remove large rocks from the pasture, he could go to the hardware store and purchase dynamite to blast the rocks. At that time, many private citizens owned semi-automatic rifles. The Army was still using bolt action rifles, but many private citizens had semi-automatics. Yet, the term “school shooting” was not in anyone’s vocabulary. It just did not happen.
Per capita, Americans own fewer guns today than the folks of Preston County owned in the 1930s. Yet these mass shootings keep happening. What has changed? That seems to be the question too few are asking.
One huge change took place almost fifty years ago. I remember it. The age of majority was changed. At first it was just the voting age, but then other things were brought into line with the voting age. In 1970, in most states, a teenager could not purchase any kind of gun. You had to be 21 to buy liquor or guns. This is one area where the gun laws could certainly be changed, without violating the constitution. Not all the mass shootings have been carried out by under-twenty-one shooters. But several of these crimes have been committed by teenagers. Why not put the age to buy a gun back up where it was prior to 1970? Evidently it did not violate the constitution then. Therefore, it would not violate the constitution now.
Other big changes have taken place in the schools, the place where so many of the most horrific shootings have occurred.
When I started school in the early 1960s, my parents were welcomed at the school. The teachers and principal listened to their input. One time a teacher arrogantly dismissed a perfectly logical suggestion my father made to her. The next day she was forced to read an apology to the whole class. The superintendent did not see the tax-paying parents as enemies. He saw them as his employers – as indeed they are. Now parents who raise an objection to anything happening at the school are likely to be labelled troublemakers. They face threats of having their children taken away. Not all the friction between school administrators and parents is the fault of the Department of Education. Some parents are rather unreasonable. But, overall, we ought to assume that our citizens are sane and reasonable. Isn’t that assumption the basis of democracy? If we assume (as some seem to do) that very few parents are honest and reasonable people, why are we holding elections? If only the “experts” know anything, democracy makes no sense.
Another change at the schools has to do with religion. When I went off to school, we had freedom of religion. Prayers were occasionally led, but no one was forced to participate. There was no compulsion. Jews could be Jews. They could openly talk about their faith. Christians could be Christians. Atheists could be atheists. Both teacher and students were free to present what they believed and why they believed it. That is no longer the case. Only one superstition (or religion, if you want to call it that) is now allowed to be promoted. All teachers are to be secularists. The court said (in the Murray decision) that we must not “establish a religion of secularism,” but that is exactly what has happened. And this secularism has led, inevitably, to a nihilistic philosophy pervading many classrooms. Our youth feel hopeless. They are taught that they are nothing but naked apes. And they act on that teaching.
Then there is the matter of gender stupidity. Seventy years ago, our laws attempted to reflect the facts of life. Women are different from men. Girls are different from boys. Today, our government refuses to admit that. What did that mean in the old days? “Prejudice against women,” you shout. Look at the facts. When my parents moved to Ohio in the early 1950s, their car had to be registered in my mother’s name. Males under the age of 21 were not allowed to register cars (let alone allowed to purchase guns). The law then recognized that young men often have their hormones out of balance. The law did not then trust them with such dangerous objects as cars. Now, we are expected to treat boys and girls alike. There is no need even to ask, “Does this equality of the fundamentally different really make sense?” All but the most extreme know that it does not make sense. Look at the statistics. How many of the mass shooters were female?
Then there is the matter of changes in entertainment. There was no television, there were no video games in my father’s world. When I was a boy, we had television and it was often quite evil, but it was mild compared to the horrors children are shown today.
Last, but far from least, when my father was growing up and even when I was, abortion was recognized as murder. Otherwise, my father might never have grown up. Today we have politicians committed to the view that children can be killed right up to the moment they draw their first breath of air. Those same people then claim that they care about the children that have been killed in school shootings. There isn’t a polite sounding word for such people. They do not care about children, they only care about their own power.
I have no way of knowing what was going through the mind of the young man who killed those people in Texas. But, given the current immoral climate and nihilistic teaching that the boy has been getting, from both school and the entertainment industry, it would not surprise me if he felt he was doing good.
I am not opposed to changes in gun laws. At least one change seems quite obvious and appropriate. But I am strongly opposed to pretending that the politicians who are calling for major changes in the gun laws are anything other than liars. They do not care about children. They only care about themselves.
There has been very little change in the availability of guns. In all respects except the age limit, gun availability has decreased. Yet gun violence has increased. We need to address what has changed. Not what has remained the same.
Comments