A lot of people want to make the issue of mass shootings and would-be mass shootings a gun issue. They argue that if we didn’t have such easy access to firearms then none of this would happen. Of course, these have happened all over the world and in countries with far more restrictive gun laws than would be tolerated here in the US, but that’s what they claim just the same.
The truth, though, is that there’s something wrong with people in this country. Our non-gun homicide rate–which accounts for only a smaller percentage of total murders–outstrips most other developed nations’ total homicide rate, which tells us that something is fundamentally wrong with the mindsets at work here in the US.
That’s also likely why we have more actual mass shootings–not by the Gun Violence Archive definition, either, but with far more restrictive mass murder definitions like that used by the FBI–compared to most other countries.
Over at our sister site, Townhall, columnist John Nantz has a thought as to what the problem is.
Traditionally, the school shooting phenomenon was perpetrated by young, disaffected males. But, a disturbing new trend seems to be forming. The tragic shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School this week was committed by a young girl. A fifteen-year-old with a digital history indicative of the deep angst experienced by many young teenagers left adrift in existential darkness.
It is a very disturbing trend indeed when our young girls, typically characterized by feminine compassion, who should be anticipating the joys of family, motherhood, or career, instead are driven to find meaning in mass homicide. Surely, this is a sign of cultural apocalypse.
Reportedly, [killer’s name redacted] had an online obsession with mass shootings and death. Can it really be surprising that our culture of death (the death of God, death of the unborn, the death of personhood) produces mass-murdering kids?
We treat the unborn like bio-waste and devalue life to the point of absurd irrelevance, discarding it at will. The message to anyone paying attention is that life is disposable and subject to whim or convenience. Making a statement with the lives of innocent people is a simple metaphysical extension of the secular culture of grievance and lack of eternal accountability.
Perhaps some old-fashioned hell-fire preaching might go a long way toward saving lives, both temporal and spiritual.
Nantz doesn’t just touch on abortion but hits on a few other issues that are pretty common talking points among the political left in this country.
Is it just liberalism that’s the problem? Well, as a libertarian, I’m inclined to accept this argument at face value because liberalism is the root of so many other issues that it wouldn’t surprise me.
But note what he says about the killer for a moment and compare it to his comments about how we “devalue life.” I think those two things are interconnected to a profound degree.
A lot of mass killers are obsessed with other mass killers. They’re obsessed with death, murder, and other such things.
Frankly, it’s not difficult to argue that people devalue life to such a degree that it’s easy for mass killers to decide that people simply don’t deserve to live.
I mean, we have a movement calling for humans to make ourselves extinct for the good of the planet. How is that respecting human life? We have people celebrating an insurance CEO’s murder simply because they didn’t like how his company did things. Human life doesn’t matter to far too many people.
And yeah, notice how all of the examples you can care to name come from the political left? I know there are pro-gun Democrats out there, and they’re not going to enjoy this, but I’m sorry, this is what it is and it’s a very plausible explanation of what motivates these killings.
Read the full article here