The quote originally said by Jack Swigert on Apollo 13 as the astronauts communicated their discovery of the explosion that crippled their spacecraft to mission control, has been used or paraphrased many times over the years with the most common usage being "Houston, We have a problem" made popular by the movie Apollo 13. In modern times we rarely have such memorable quotes.
A few weeks ago I moved back to my home city of Englewood, Colorado. One of the first things that has happened was a shooting at East High school. A student, who had to submit to daily pat downs before entering school brought a gun to school and when it was found during the search he used it to shoot 2 school officials and later himself. The immediate cry from Liberals and the Democrats in state govt was to push the new "gun control" bills through immediately. These new bills add no new safety measures to the existing ones and will do nothing to prevent these kinds of events. The kid had a made at home or "ghost gun." One of the bills demands people register these types of guns. But my problem is how are they going to be registered? They have no serial numbers, no tracing of being produced, nothing to track or register. The other thing these gun control advocates seem to forget is most violent gun crimes involve guns not attained legally. Thus, preventing legal citizens from owning firearms does nothing but create more victims. Most mass shootings take place in gun free zones. Why would that be the case? Well the criminals know there is no good guy with a gun to stop them and they can inflict more damage. If law enforcement enforced the current laws, we had more armed security at more vulnerable locations and criminals were held accountable we could prevent most of these crimes. The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
More than the legal means one of the main problems in almost all of these situations is similar to all other issues we have in society, lack of parental guidance. This includes parents who are disengaged, men not being in the home and being fathers, and lack of teaching kids empathy and compassion for their fellow humans. The answer to almost all of our societal problems can be solved with three things:
1. Parental involvement
2. Reviving faith in society
3. Teaching kids compassion and empathy
These three things give people every tool they need to survive. People learn valuable skills and also learn how to care for one another. It is almost impossible for any human to commit violence against another human if they truly care for humanity and are taught that life matters. From a young age kids are taught to be selfish and focus only on their pleasure and needs. How can anyone care for another if they only think of themselves. For those in poorer communities they are taught they don't matter, why would they care for anyone else if nobody cares about them?
Teaching faith immediately teaches people life and they matter. That no matter how alone they feel, they are never alone. Churches form communities with shared values and beliefs. Faith teaches humility, love, and service to others. Why is it that a vast majority of Americans say they have no faith or believe in God? Because it is taught from early years. This will lead to nothing but the end of our society as we know it.
So do I think we have a problem, absolutely. But it is not what we are being told it is. We don't have a gun problem in America, we have a compassion problem. That wont be solved with more laws or taking protection from law abiding citizens, it can only be solved by communities and proper parenting.
No comments:
Post a Comment