It is abundantly clear the one thing the two men responsible for the recent mass killings have in common is mental illness. Both young men warned they would carry out the killings and both made good on their promises. The Buffalo shooter, 18-year-old Payton Gendron, spend time in a psych ward, and with good reason. For a week, he wore a full hazmat suit to class. During a school assignment, he was asked what he planned to do upon retirement, his response: commit murder /suicide. Unfortunately, he failed to fulfill the second part of that goal.
In Texas, in three chilling Facebook posts, Salvador Ramos, also 18, bragged of his intentions to gun down his grandmother and then shoot up an elementary school. His 66-year-old grandmother survived the attack, 19 school children and two teachers didn’t. The previous week, Ramos legally purchased two rifles and 335 rounds of ammunition from a local sporting goods store.
Obviously, neither one of these young men should have been able to legally purchase a firearm. But easy access to guns is not the problem. What caused these two men to carry out such horrific crimes? In a free society these types of incidents are virtually impossible to stop. If someone is determined to commit violence no amount of legislation will prevent it, no executive action by a governor or a president will stop the next mass shooting. There are more guns in this country than there are people. The question people should be asking, says Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, “why is our society producing so many violent young men?”
Some will say purging God from public school classrooms, or the prevalence of violent video games has led to the spike in violence among mostly teenage boys; many of these young people come from broken homes in which there are no father. All of these factors have contributed to the rise of delinquency among many of our youth.
The Biden’s Administration and the media’s response is nothing if not predictable; focus on the instrument of destruction and not the heart of the person holding it. News breaker: the violence isn’t limited to schools, or supermarkets. On any given weekend in Chicago, gang-bangers shoot and kill each other over drugs, money or territory; psychopaths push unsuspecting strangers in front of subway trains. In every major city across the country, violent crime is on the rise and it’s not due to easy access to guns. To blame guns is so silly it shouldn’t even warrant a response. But when the President of the United States shamelessly blames the gun lobby for the actions of two crazed individuals in order to score political points, he needs to be called on it. When the Left speaks of the “gun lobby” they’re referring to the NRA.
Biden, in a speech the day after the attack in Texas, was as divisive as ever: “When in God’s name we do what we all know in our gut needs to be done….” What would that be, Mr. President, enact more gun control measures, such a ban on assault weapons? As for the lobbying power of the NRA, in 2020, during an election year, it spent 2.2 million dollars lobbying congress. Last year Big Tech spent 70 million for the same purpose, Big Pharma, 92 million dollars in the first quarter alone!
America doesn’t have a gun problem, it has a sin problem. Our culture is depraved. As Christians we know the world is fallen. That’s why we need a Savior. Politicians will always do what’s easiest. But if they think infringing on Americans’ Second Amendments rights is the path of least resistance, they are going to be in for a rude awakening.