I watched the presidential session with the survivors and parents of the recent school shooting with a tear being shed a couple of times. The kids were eloquent, and the parents were filled with the emotion that one would expect. I’m not sure what that is since I never lost a child, but it was raw and vivid enough for anyone watching to get the point that something has to be done to prevent this from ever happening again. Later, I watched a couple of news channels and the afternoon session had been reduced to no guns and more guns. The anti-gun groups were using their best weapon, and the NRA lovers were defending themselves. The subject had turned to what each wanted rather than to finding a cure for a deeply imbedded problem in our trying to raise young people and educate them without worrying about their safety.
There were the occasional suggestions of increasing mental health facilities, but then someone would say that mentally ill people do not shoot people. I did not understand this since it was slightly apparent that the young man who did the shooting was mentally short of something. We heard of increasing the age to buy a firearm and banning military-type weapons. There were a lot of suggestions to change the present situation, including the president’s, which was to harden schools with armed teachers or other employees. This follows the old adage that it takes a gun to stop a gun so why not put the good gun inside the school. Well, the CNNs and MSNBCs had a great time with this. They would rather make a political point against Trump than realistically add to the suggestion pool of ideas.
After listening to all of this, I felt that there was something missing. Hearing once again on a news report that Billy Graham had died answered my funny feeling of missing a solution to the problem of school and other shootings in our country. I had written a three-part blog about “Killing in America” but did not mention God. When I started this blog, I noticed the domain name did have an ecclesiastic ring to it, but I was writing to the secular public. Except for the “Jerusalem” article, I have left God alone. With this subject it is impossible to leave God out because many have questioned why God let this happen. I can’t answer for God, but I can mention that God was kicked out of our schools many years ago. He was asked to leave the public spaces, and his symbols have been removed from public view. A cross of Christ on public property brings a lawsuit and the Ten Commandments have been removed from most public spaces.
As a Christian I have watched this occur for the past fifty years without very much opposition. The law is set to punish the person being sued even if they are innocent. This is done through blackmail by the ACLU due to the cost of defending oneself. Most small towns and cities cannot afford to pay the cost of the legal fees and capitulate to save the money. Many memorials that were marked with crosses have been destroyed because they offend someone. THE ONLY ONE OFFENDED BY A SYMBOL OF JESUS CHRIST IS SATAN. When God is removed, evil moves in to occupy the vacant area, and we see it happening all over this country. Hollywood chased God away many years ago and that let it make movies that exploit sex, drugs, killing, and every other evil possible. They say that it is freedom of expression, but expressing evil that is later used by our young people is evil. We have seen marriage vows degraded to their not being needed to start a family or used to legitimize a gay lifestyle. Single parents are the norm now, and the responsibility and respect of one partner to the other has disappeared. The adults’ feelings are more important than their children, and we see the results of kids who have been abused and abandoned. Some of them use a gun to make the world see them.
We can cancel the Second Amendment, and we would still be like Chicago or Baltimore. We made heroin illegal many years ago, but you can buy it on many of our street corners. We can raise the age to purchase a gun, but we did that for the use of alcohol and underage drinking has not declined. We can harden our schools, but like the terrorists other methods of killing will replace guns. We have already seen a knife attack in a school. We can satisfy the political wishes of either party, and we will not have put a dent into the problem of raising our children safely and without problems at our schools.
The only way to change the present is to change it back to the time when God did rule in our schools and public places. That would be a time when respect and love for our neighbors and concern for everyone’s children would be displayed. The small town that I grew up in gave me a mother and father on every street and at every friend’s house. The little white church where we attended Sunday School taught all of us to follow our Lord Jesus and use him for our questions about life. I still drive by that church when I am in that town each year to visit relatives and say thank you, Lord Jesus.
To effect real change, we need every family to take their children to church, synagogue, or mosque. There is no other place in our society today to teach the respect and love for other human beings that is needed to change the way we live and solve problems that threaten our society. May God Bless You!
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