I’m sooooooooooooo tired of the meme that gun violence is caused by video games, music, or our culture in general. Therefore, these mass shootings will continue until we drastically change our culture.
I personally believe a large part of the problem are children raised in a home where love and respect for others was not modeled by the adults. They witnessed domestic violence, felt the pain of spankings, heard the name calling and racial slurs, and saw the adults turn to alcohol or radical religion to dull the pain. Education and individual thought was not valued, and every problem was the fault of someone else, even the child. As these children grew up and had children of their own they were often lost to drug and alcohol abuse leaving their children to be raised by the grandparents, the same people who raised them and creating another loveless generation.
You or I may be right or wrong about how we arrived here, but we must deal with the situation we have not some fantasy that might have been. We can’t blame something we have no control over and ignore what we can control.
Asian, and European cultures have the same music, movies, video games, an increased level of both vulgar language and sexually explicit content in their TV shows, and a much lower influence of organized religion but mass shootings are virtually non-existent. What’s different? Guns
Some things I think we can agree on
We don’t need military type weapons. We are never going to be called on to take up a weapon and defend our country. We can be more effective defending our way of life thinking through our problems.
We don’t need hand guns for personal defense. In a civilized society with the rule of law we should hold everyone accountable for their action while at the same time learning to live together, even with those who look, sound, or act different.
The 25 to 30 percent of our population who enjoy hunting can still hunt the same way their parents and grandparents taught them, with a rifle or shotgun.
I’m not a flaming liberal who doesn’t understand the real world. I served in the Army in a time of war and was stationed overseas. I’ve lived most of my life in a large urban area with a very diverse population. I’ve spent my career working for companies in management positions, and for about 6 years wore a side arm and was asked to keep the peace each day. I’ve dealt with drunks, drugged, those intent on criminal activity, chronically homeless, fights, and the occasional stabbing or shooting.
Until violence becomes the last resort instead of the first to threats we can only protect ourselves and our first responders by removing guns from the equation.