I am as appalled as anyone in their right mind would be at the continuing violence and senseless killings. No, I do not have answers and wish to all the Powers that I did but I do very humbly offer a few suggestions of what we as a people need to do. The following is strictly my opinion and I do not expect anyone to agree with me but I do want my readers to think about it with an open mind. Some humble suggestions:
First ban the media from any proximity to tragedy and disaster scenes. Shoving a microphone into a survivor's face, regardless of their age, and demanding answers like "How do you feel..." should be a CRIME!! I had to shut off my TV last night after watching this horrible situation being dissected, salivated over and splashed across my screen for over an hour. I was literally about to be sick. A very brief statement that a tragedy occurred and the simplest possible facts about it is more than enough!! No one has a "need to know" and the damned press needs to back off!!!
Second, I am sure there will be lots of screams for gun control. But if someone is so vicious or deranged as to want to kill strangers, they will find a way--bombs, crashing their vehicle into a crowd, poison and a zillion other means. People kill, not guns. So we need to focus on the real problem: fixing these broken people.
Third, if possible don't even give the doer's name, much less all the gory details and whines and blame slinging. We do not need to, in effect, glorify criminal, heinous acts!! In training animals reprimands are often seen as 'attention' by the creature being trained, giving reinforcement we do not want to give! The doers here want fame and notoriety and power; withhold it from them and their hapless families who probably are not guilty of anything but being human also!
And last, yes, we need to pray for the families and the spirits of those killed and wounded in all these hideous events but we also need to actively pray for the healing of those who are so deranged, warped or twisted that they may be contemplating acts of horrible violence. It might still be possible to turn them in other directions and collective prayer does have incredible power.
To help this on some more, we may need to get rid of the most ultra-violent games and entertainment media because for some it is hard to draw a line between playing or make-believe and real blood, gore and death. We banish toy guns but allow video games where one leaves a trail of bodies?? We flash blood and gore across the TV and movie screens and call it art and entertainment?? Only the military and first responders fully realize how ugly and final death can be unless as private citizens it strikes close to us.
We may even need to go back to a bit more discipline and consequences in early childhood for negative behavior and stop worrying so much about 'self esteem' and puffing their egos and avoiding trauma of every kind. Life is real, harsh and earnest and children need to be slowly introduced to these facts from infancy on instead of it suddenly hitting them at eighteen or twenty-one.. There are no free lunches. We do not all have the same abilities and skills but that is okay. Everyone will not be an A student, a brilliant athlete, or the prom royalty but if we apply ourselves and seek where our personal strengths are and then build on and use them, we can almost all be okay and make a contribution. and have a decent life. But we have to work and earn, not go and steal it from others.
I would not go so far as to say religion necessarily has a place in the classroom but some form of spiritual belief belongs in every home and it is the parents' job to instill it in their children--a respect for others, the concepts of right and wrong--and yes, there really is a difference and it is not being "judgmental" to say so, at least not taking judgmental as a dirty word! Hate, violence, bullying, theft, even rudeness and greed --all the traditional no-nos are still valid. I think many young people are not learning this. And it is NOT okay to go kill anyone just because you feel your parents are too strict, you do not have all the gizmos you want, other kids are not nice to you or really anything else. The fact most of these mass killers are very young seems significant to me; we are failing our youth somehow for this many to go this wrong. Whatever we have been doing the last 25 or more years isn't too successful. We need to ask why and what we can do better.
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