For all our progress and telling ourselves we’re the “best yet!” in this information age, there are clearly a massive amount of emotional wrecks. These individuals don’t stop at withdrawing from the world, but seek to harm society in absolutely horrific ways. The latest shooting happened on Thursday at a community college in Oregon. That we even have to say “the latest” is testament to our continued decline.
Immediately, Thursday’s shooting was politicized. Tragedy can be a strong motivation for change, and this situation is no different. We all agree that something needs to happen, but that is not the point. With many societal matters, the real issue isn’t agreeing on a solution, but agreeing on what the problem is in the first place. Some say guns should be controlled more, and laws will help achieve this. Other say they should be controlled less, citing need for freedom to take out an attacker in a similar situation.
And we arrive at an impasse while a new set of family and friends begin the excruciating process of saying goodbye to a loved one gone too soon. And we have the president of the United States going before the country to politicize a tragedy even more. Instead of only focusing on grief and unity, he chooses to malign a group of people who are not responsible for the tragedy.
Obama: “I would particularly ask America’s gun owners…to think about whether your views are properly being reflected by [the NRA]”
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) October 1, 2015
Being ready to blame anyone, he connected the many who non-violently exercise their right to firearms to the very few – the one – who committed the latest act. That is unintelligent, emotional, and dangerous. It is neither progress nor a solution, but attempts to serve as a place-holder for these. The Left praises the insistence that a group like the NRA is partly responsible for the culture of death we are soaking in, because the alternative is much less comfortable for them. The truth is that evil is real and among us. For those who don’t like the idea of good, evil, and absolutes, the black and white of it all is disquieting. The truth is that you can never stop violence. It will never cease. Destroying a life by way of murder has been with us since the beginning and will always be with us. I wish this were not the case and that such a thing could be changed by legislation, but that, of course, is nonsense.
It’s very telling that the many gun-related deaths in Chicago are rarely mentioned in the national media. On Monday of this week, the Chicago Tribune reported:
Six people were killed and at least eight people were wounded, including an 11-month-old boy and a 2-year-old boy, during a bloody start to the week in Chicago that saw 10 of the victims shot at two scenes less than 3 miles apart on the South Side.
The burst of violence follows two straight weekends when more than 50 people were shot in Chicago.
Through Sunday, homicides have risen to 359, up 21 percent from 296 a year earlier, according to preliminary data from Chicago police.
Tragedies are tragedies, regardless of color, and should be condemned just the same. However, the Leftist media will not do that. This is a glaring example of the “gun is to blame!” mentality. If all gun deaths were just as revolting (they are), we would hear about them just as much. But the perpetrators in Chicago are most likely not card-carrying members of the NRA, so it’s not as exploitable for the anti-gun movement. Less urban guy in kind-of suburbia? It can’t be him or his surroundings, so it must just be the gun. All the while they do nothing but discriminate against the victims shot on the city streets. But the Left’s habit of discriminating against certain lives is nothing new. It was just this week that abortion was readily defended on the national stage. And still we wonder where the culture of death comes from? We shouldn’t.
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