The Real Solutions To Mass Murders, School Shootings And Gun Violence

Is it time to look outside the box at the real culprit of the gun violence in the U.S? Is there one simple solution that would dramatically reduce violence and gun crime like the mass shooting we just saw at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut?

Or, is it more realistic to admit, hard as it may be, that there may be no one item or issue creating the culture of violence in America?  Is gun violence or violence in general intricately woven into the fabric of our country? Or as H. Rap Brown said back in the 60s, “Violence is as American as apple pie.”

Perhaps we need to closely observe which threads need to be cut from our fabric, and which are required to remain for the long-term existence of this country and her people?

Without a doubt we need to look at all the pieces of the puzzle if we are serious about getting to the bottom of the American culture of gun violence and the causes of the mass school shootings. Perhaps our culture has made a change for the worse in other areas that have slipped our attention in the past few decades, and especially today in the wake of the shooting at Sandy Hook.

The fabric of our nation is in much worse shape today than it has ever been. Maybe there is some merit to those pointing to violent movies and video games infiltrating the minds of our young. Even the war movies of a few decades ago chose to show death with someone falling, or maybe an arm or hand in the picture going limp. Today if there’s not blood, it’s a dud. And the more the better it seems, at least in terms of movie profits.

Then we’ve got the hypocritical Hollywood movie stars making increasingly more violent movies. Then they spout off about how we should ban the very guns they are glorifying. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOt7Fi49PT0

Is it the music we allow our children to listen to? Is it the general lack of supervision of our children overall? Are we even able to supervise our children properly in our technological age--or do we even care? Perhaps we’re just too afraid to spend enough time with our children to bring them up properly so we’d rather rely on the government to just eliminate all the “dangerous things” in their lives so we no longer have to take responsibility in supervising them.

Today we’re covering our children’s problems by giving them psychological drugs instead of love. The drug industry and the doctors have become the biggest drug pushers in this country—prescribing drugs they know full well increase the tendency for violence and chance of suicide. These statistics are significant. Some of these drugs increase the odds for violence 12 times more—not compared to those who don’t take them—compared to other drugs that have already been shown to increase these tendencies over those who take no drugs!

Many mass murderers and individuals responsible for domestic violence in the family have been known to be on these medications, yet this is never brought up by those who want to keep your focus on the guns. Anti-gunners continue saying the gun lobby is so rich and powerful at the same time they ignore a much more plausible reason for crime—the pharmaceutical companies. This is partly because the pharmaceutical industry is many times more powerful than the gun lobby will ever be.

Is our culture desensitizing the upcoming generations to violent behavior? Have we become too afraid to stand up for what’s right for fear of offending someone who may not agree with us? It seems our ability to do the right thing has become overshadowed by our fear of offending.

Mass murder is tied to the ability, along with the willingness, to resort to this type of violence. That doesn’t come from any one item. In the absence of guns there are plenty other means to do more severe, and more instantaneous, and more catastrophic damage if one so desires. Focusing on bogus solutions without addressing the real problem might just get us another Oklahoma City bombing.

Every time an outrageous shooting occurs, it doesn’t make sense to focus on an inanimate object just to try and take away some people’s only viable means of self defense. Why vilify those who don’t abuse the privilege to have a firearm just because someone else chose to misuse it? If the media treated vehicle deaths with the same urgency as they do gun deaths there would be breaking news every 52 minutes. But they don’t because it’s not about the deaths. It’s about the guns.

More guns for law-abiding citizens?
If lawmakers want to focus on guns as the cause of violence then they have a duty to view the solution as perhaps being the same as what hospitals have gotten correct for a number of years now. It’s what is sometimes referred to poison/anti-poison. You don’t give penicillin to a cancer patient to fight off the cancer. You give a poison that’s stronger than the poison attacking him or her. If you want to assume guns are the problem, then it’s time to look at what the anti-gunners will consider an inconvenient truth—guns may just be the solution.

As Wayne LaPierre so aptly stated, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun.”

The only viable solution that has been proposed to prevent school shootings is to implement concealed carry on school grounds. At the very least, teachers who take the protection of their children seriously should not be prevented from doing what they can to see to it the kids stay safe.

Of course for those teachers who would like to protect the children, it should be mandatory to keep any weapon concealed. I would even argue that those who choose to carry not even mention it to anyone. This is for the same reason mentioned in a previous article about the placement of armed guards at schools. If a criminal knows who is carrying, that person will become the first target. For true safety, keep it concealed.

I don’t advocate that all teachers be armed. I don’t advocate that all citizens should be armed—even law-abiding, mentally competent individuals. Truth is, some just shouldn’t be armed if they don’t like the idea and aren’t comfortable with it. But, if teachers are really serious about protecting their students, why are politicians getting in the way of giving the teachers a fighting chance to keep the children safe? We’ve already seen the ugly alternative too many times. Maybe it’s time to wake up.

If the government wants to start with a quick, simple, and effective means of minimizing the damage caused by deranged gunmen, start by installing tougher doors and locks on classroom doors just like they do now in the cockpits of airplanes. At least this way when the shooting starts, collateral damage can be minimized. It’s much better than huddling in a corner hoping a psycho won’t target your room when he’s done with the one where he started.

Immediately after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, the President stated, “We need to start in our own hearts and homes.” If taken as a possible starting point, and not as rhetoric to deflect all responsibility away from the real cause—the individual—the President’s original comments are 100% correct.

We need to ask ourselves what we can do as individuals to strengthen our moral society. We need to stop deflecting the true cause of our problems in this county. We need to act, and at the same time act in such a way that preserves our liberties that made us the greatest nation in the world instead of being so afraid to offend others that we pussy-foot around the real solutions.

In the next article we take a look at one of the most controversial, and seemingly most illogical, solutions to the gun crime and mass shootings in the United States—the argument that “more guns equals less crime.”