What is more to blame for the Connecticut school shooting, guns or socioeconomic breakdown?
First, let me express my deepest sympathy and heartfelt grief to the families and the loved ones of all those who were killed in the terrible shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut last Friday.
When trying to comprehend something as evil as what happened in Connecticut the first raw, visceral reaction is to blame the implement used to cause the destruction rather than the individual responsible for the action and predictably that is what we are seeing in this case. So if we are not going to blame the individual for his actions in cases like this, let us take a look at some of the things which may have contributed to the mindset which drives people to commit such heinous crimes. (This post is meant to be a general look at people who have committed this type of crime and not at Adam Lanza himself or this particular crime because we still don’t have enough details about this case to discern what led him to commit such a horrific act.)
With crimes like this it is easier to blame the tool instead of the person because blaming the person would be an admission that the problem is much deeper than many people care to believe it is. It is easy to claim guns are the root of the evil, it is much harder to look at the crumbling society around us and attempt to fix that problem so people naturally look at guns as the problem because they feel it is an easier way to solve the problem.
It is easier to blame the trigger than it is to blame the man who pulled it, and much more reassuring as well, because this fallacy teaches us that all is right in society and all violence would be quelled if we simply took away an instrument of destruction without even looking at the devolution of society as the true co-conspirator in these types of crimes.
These people would have us believe that if we ban guns all evil will cease to exist because guns are the true evil, but the truth is that there is evil in this world with or without guns but we are constantly being told that we are not supposed to judge a person’s actions unless we too have lived life as they have; there really is no right or wrong in today’s culture–everyone is allowed to do what feels good to them and we are not supposed to impose our morals on others– and because of this mindset this type of person is allowed to slip through the cracks and nothing is done until it is too late.
Simply put, people don’t want to believe that evil exists and quite frankly they believe it is an easier fix to focus on the weapon because nobody wants to admit that society has broken down to the point where this seems like something like this is a logical way out to some people.
(I realize I just said the same exact thing three different ways, and I apologize for repeating myself, but I can’t state that fact loudly enough!)
But as I have alluded to above, the fact is that there is a breakdown in society and that breakdown starts at the family level. The family structure is becoming a thing of the past as we are taught that we don’t need the traditional family or family values in today’s world because this is an old fashioned way of thinking. Instead we are seeing broken families and single parent households reliant on government programs which have supplanted the role of the father figure in too many cases. Too many fathers walk away from their responsibility because they know their children will be provided for and would rather not be responsible for the upbringing of a child they probably didn’t want in the first place but the truth is–in my opinion–that nothing can replace the influence of a father in a child’s life.
This, coupled with the fact that parental rights are being eroded and parents now have the threat of DSS taking their children away if the government deems they have been too strict, and children being empowered to turn their parents in for their transgressions, and we see the family unit being stripped away and the structure provided within that family replaced with a much more lenient and tolerant society which is afraid to teach the younger generation about right and wrong.
And with this increased presence in child rearing comes an increase of prescription medications our children are being put on because they supposedly suffer from ADD or they are hyperactive–things once associated with simply being a child–which now can’t be controlled by the parents for the reasons stated above. Our children’s behavior is being controlled by drugs instead of through punishment and lessons learned through the punishment. They are not learning tough life lessons, instead they are being shielded from it until it is too late to help them.
Because we live in a country where there is no right or wrong we also live in a country where there are no consequences for an individual’s actions and there is no personal responsibility because there is always someone else to blame; the person who commits a crime has been turned into some sort of victim himself, and with the knowledge that someone else is always to blame it becomes easier for a person to lose his or her sense of commitment to society.
We live in a violent society propagated by video games and Hollywood while violence is glorified on television and in music. Most people can watch and listen to this and not be adversely affected because they know the difference between entertainment and reality, but not everyone can and the gift of life is no longer held so dear as it once was and this begins with a society which not only allows the killing of the pre-born but also promotes it. (Let me clarify that comment by stating I am talking about using abortion as a form of birth control and not about cases where the mother’s life is in danger or in cases of rape.)
When you couple all of this with an economy that has been bad for many years with no signs of real improvement for some time to come and the sense of hopelessness it brings as we watch politicians on both sides of the aisle fight for what is in their best political interests rather than what is best for the country one can’t help but wonder how our priorities have become so misguided throughout the years.
The gun control advocates would now have us believe that we need to ban weapons to protect the people against the society which the government has helped to create and that is the easy and cowardly way out because it ignores the fact that the problem is much deeper and not so easily solved. I wish there were simple solutions to the problems of society but there is not…..
America's Watchtower 
There are a lot of sick people out there, but I also believe there is good as well as evil in this world. Violence on TV and video games play apart. That said I must wonder why these evil people never, never target police stations. Perhaps they are not as crazy as we would like to believe. Gun Free Zones like our schools are throwing out a welcome mat for this lunatics. Naturally we can’t place a policeman in every school but we could train selected teachers in safe use of firearms and that alone would help more than anyother immediate action I can think of. Of course the blowback from the teachers unions would be deafening. My father who was a teacher for many years always carried a pistol in his briefcase—that would be a violation of the law in todays world. Like you say, many reasons for this murderous attack, but steps must be taken to address the specific problem and not some generalized attack on the 2nd.
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That is a good point about the police stations, these people never target a place where they know the guns are even though in the end they take their own lives and that is probably because they want to go out in a “blaze of glory” and take as many people with them as they can.
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Very well said, Steve. The real problem is very complex and there is no will to talk about the issues like adults. The gun control people know that more controls will change nothing. They want the controls anyway because control is what they are about.
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Thanks Jim. Control is what it is all about, you have that right.
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I agree with CoF 100%. Very well said, Steve and Jim. Merry Christmas to the lot of you!
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Thank you Linda and a Merry Christmas to you and your family as well.
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Time we begin eliminating the ability of nuts to get guns 100%. Is control the correct term? What term would you prefer? What action would you prefer. We all agree nuts shouldn’t be able to go to their mommie’s room and get armed, and go on a rampage and kill 20 kids.
Dumping 10 million more guns a year into American homes surely isn’t the answer.
It is my government’s job to protect me from armed crazy people with assault weapons and 50 round clips. In fact it is their #1 job.
Government. Do your job.
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There is no doubt that there are people who should never get their hands on weapons and Lanza’s mother was probably irresponsible, but why is it that when something like this happens the “solution” always seem to affect the people who have done nothing wrong?
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“we don’t need the traditional family or family values in today’s world” It’s not that we don’t need family values, it is the fact that both parents need to work to survive in most cases, because the “traditional” family is being robbed at every turn. They haven’t got a raise in 30 years. Our families live one trip to the hospital from being financially wiped out. I once wrote an article and listed 40 things that can happen to anyone who works hard and plays by the rules that could wipe them out.
The odds are against us hard working Americans like me. The game is rigged. Elizabeth Warren is 100% right.
HSBC launders money for drug lords, and no one goes to jail when they are caught. This story is sickening. Multiple laws were broken by HSBC executives, and they are still home safe in their mansions, or sailing on their yachts. Unindicted.
It is time even the wealthy begin paying for their crimes. Not just poor people should be going to jail when laws are broken. Time the playing field is leveled. After the collapse of 2008 zero banksters were locked up for manipulating the system, and breaking of laws.
I can see why some kids turn to violence when every day it becomes harder to survive. Why should they even try one would wonder. In many neighborhoods the only job there is is pushin’ dope. That is just a fact.
The real problem is simple. The Walton heirs have more wealth than 41% of Americans combined. This is not capitalism. It is a lootocrisy where only the wealthy or the lucky can get ahead. The Mitt Romney’s of this world pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes and fees than someone trying to raise 2 kids on minimum wage. The wealthy have all the lobbyists, all the power, all the money, and are above the law. All the politicians either work for them, or are afraid of them, their lobbyists, and their power.
And you wonder why some turn to violence…… I don’t.
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At least people like Walton have created thousands of jobs whereas people like Soros and Buffett have not.
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You asked who is to blame? I am sure of one thing; the comment from “anonymous” above is at the core of the problem. “Anonymous” is, as he/she says, someone who sees the world against him/her. He/she thinks that a woman who lied to benefit herself is “100% right”. He/she sees life as a 0-sum game where someone else needs to loose for him/her to be happy.
That is the type of person I am most afraid of!! Not the Walton family, or the Romney family.
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That is a very good point and I didn’t even realize they way that comment plays right into the point I was trying to make in this post.
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I think you should stop whining and carrying on!
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Sorry, I was talking to Anonymous!
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Don’t worry, I know who you were talking to!
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Thanks Steve! 🙂
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No problem!
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Awesome awesome post Steve. I honestly don’t believe this could have more thoroughly thought out and stated.
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Thank you.
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From Daily Kos: “Crazy idea: Instead of making 100s of laws to protect unborn children, maybe GOP politicians could work on 1 or 2 to protect actual children”
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You Airheads in Washington Take Notice…
Your laws ignore our deepest needs,
Your words are empty air.
You’ve stripped away our heritage,
You’ve outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms,
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere,
And ask the question “Why?”
You regulate restrictive laws,
Through legislative creed.
And yet you fail to understand,
That God is what we need!
By: Darrell Scott
Father of a deceased Columbine student
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Well said Hurger!!!
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“Crazy idea: Instead of making 100s of laws to protect unborn children, maybe GOP politicians could work on 1 or 2 to protect actual children”
Why is the life of an unborn child, any less precious than one lives outside of the womb?
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That is a great question.
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The making of laws has gotten out of control here. Why not enforce the ones we have and stop making more? It doesn’t make our world any safer, but it does put more control in the hands of the government….maybe THAT is the real reason for making them? The guns are not the problem and I know people are saying to not let the “nuts” get the guns, but that is not that easy. As in this case, were the guns not locked up? Maybe not or maybe so. Did he have access to the key if they were? There are alot of unanswered questions, so we may never know what the whole truth is. To say, as Bloomberg wants, we have to get rid of all of the guns is stupid….I guess we need to get rid of all the cars so drunk drivers will not have the chance to get behind the wheel, we need to get rid of all meds so someone can’t poison anyone else, we need to get rid of knives so you can’t take a life that way, we need to outlaw dogs so you can’t turn one loose on a person to kill them, what about bats, rocks, drowning, strangling, smothering, well, the list coud be endless. Then you have people being pushed down stairs, off tops of buildings, it could go on and on….IF someone wants to take a life or lives, they can do it…what we need to do is make sure a person is able to take care of themselves or to protect ones in their care. There are always going to be people that want to do harm, I just do not think there is a fail safe way of stopping them. I will take my chances of being armed as the best and quickest way of stopping that from happening. I don’t want to be that person that puts her arms up over her face to stop an attack. I heard on the radio that the principal was the first in the hall after hearing the glass break at the school, had she been armed and able to fire off a round, would she have been able to take this evil man/boy down? We will never know, now. So, we focus on guns, yes that was the weapon of choice, this time, but I think we need to look at the underlying causes, as Steve has in his post first.
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Exactly Lou, all we are doing is giving up more control to the federal government with legislation like what is now being talked about when we are already ignoring the laws on the books. And that is all the feds really care about, they don’t care about the children but rather about using these deaths to gain more power.
Nancy Lanza knew she had a troubled child and yet she allowed him to have access to thse guns anyway, how is that the fault of responsible gun owners?
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Connecticut via the ACLU has decimated the mental health system in that state. I believe over a dozen mental health hospitals were closed the last 6 years, and no way to really commit anyway.
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ANd yet no politicians are looking at this because it is much easier to look at the guns rather than their failures.
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If a madman wants to kill innocent people he will find a way. Killers don’t need guns to kill people. Timothy McVeigh used fertilizer. 911 terrorists used box cutters and jet planes. The Nazis used Cyanide gas… Taking guns from law abiding innocent people will not protect innocent people. The problem is not guns. It is a Godless society.
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Amen to that!
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You’ve got that so RIGHT lyvnxxl.
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A very well written piece that echoes my feelings exactly.I have been saying to many that America always needs someone or something to blame.The notion that more laws will help prevent criminals from committing horrific crimes is in and of itself absurd.
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Thank you and I couldn’t agree more; once a person reaches the point where this seems like a logical way out no law in the world is going to stop him, meanwhile these laws target the law abiding citizens.
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No matter what the choice of weapon is, gun, knife, bomb, bat, brick, rock, poison, when someone is murdered, there is *always* one common denominator. Another person
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Exactly; we should be focused on what leads a person to do this rather than the weapon used to do this.
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It’s the breakdown of morality, the cleaning of God out of our schools and government, and basically giving in to the atheists and nutbags! Since when has a minority ruled? Someone doesn’t like a Manger Scene at City Hall. Someone else doesn’t like Crosses placed for dead soldiers. When is it going to end? When the vast Majority speaks up and tells these fools SHUT UP and GET OVER IT!!!
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You’ve got that right! We have stripped away all sense of right and wrong in this country and this is the result.
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It could also be all the drugs they give the children when they start acting out. Little Susie isn’t listening in class. Take this pill. Little Susie won’t sit still. Take this pill, etc. These drugs given to the children cause many problems including suicide. Outlaw the drugs and let the children grow up like we did in the 50’s. Put more money in Mental Health care instead of wasting it on Gun Control. They are trying to put a band-aid on the effect and not treating the cause at the expense of the Law Abiding Citizen.
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I couldn’t agree more!
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