How to Stop Mass Shootings
The answer is simple, or is it? The ferocity in which our country is divided on this topic is undeniable. You don't have to look very hard to find the battle lines on the subject are drawn in sand. Opposition on every side. People screaming so loudly from their individual soap boxes, and no one hears them, because everyone has an answer and not just an answer, but THE answer.
Last week in our marketing meeting, our staff, comprised of fathers of daughters and sons (ranging from three year olds to twenty years olds) to staff that has grown children to staff with no children; we all had an answer. Not the same answers, but we had answers.
Over the weekend, ( June 3-5) 54 people injured, 11 killed in 7 separate mass shootings. These shootings happened at graduation parties, outdoor entertainment areas and malls.
A church in Iowa, a hospital in Utah all with in the last week alone.
287 Mass Shootings in the US since January 2022! ( defined by more the 4 people shot)
I have spent the last 10 days deep in research. Not out of some twisted. morib need to expose myself to such depressing facts, but to understand what we as a nation as a people intend to do to ease the mind of parents dropping their kids off at school, sending them to the mall with friends, celebrating a victory after a football game, feel safe in a house of worship.
I read article after article on every side of the debate, the radical left, the radical right, the independent extremists, the folks who have never even so much as touched a water gun in their lives to the people who take their kids to the shooting range with them every Saturday.
What I read was lots of blame. Violent video games, violent music, violent movies, parents not parenting, parents parenting too much, cyber bullies, participation trophies, mental health, too many gun laws, not enough gun laws., age for purchasing guns, not enough gun training, training kids to be killers, broken homes, I mean the list goes on and on.
After reading 30 or so articles, I was more confused than when I started. I was in college in Texas when the shooting happened at Virginia Tech. Texas, where kids attending high school had gun racks in the back of their pick up trucks, Texas where guns were a right of passage growing up. The debate across the nation quickly turned to whether or not colleges should allow students to campus carry. Guess what, everyone and noone had the answers back then too.
Cars are still being mass produced even though 1 person an hour is killed by a drunk driver. Drug manufacturers still make addictive painkillers, even though 2 million or 24% of the population are addicted to them, and 92,000 died by overdosing in 2020 alone.
In 1978, the Jonestown massacre happened. 900+ members who followed Jim Jones were murdered/committed suicide by drinking laced koolaid. Koolaid is still a staple in most homes.
One particular article I read even dismissed the notion that EVIL WILL FIND A WAY. The author called this notion a myth. That mass shootings aren't about good vs evil. The author continues with..." A good guy with a gun is theology..."