Reflecting on Sandy Hook

 

Like many of you, I don’t know how to express the horror and sadness I feel about the murder spree that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut Friday morning. I’m rattled and I didn’t sleep well last night. I’m a parent. My world would be utterly destroyed if something like this befell any of my children. There is nothing on this Earth that can balance what was taken from those poor mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers.

I think all of us want answers. Why would anyone ever do such a horrible thing? How could anyone, no matter their level of hatred, target innocent children? And already, we’re beginning to point the finger of blame. It’s hard not to.

Many people, apparently President Obama included, are pointing to gun control. They believe that access to guns is the reason for this type of violence in America and that the only way to stop it is to severely limit or ban access to those weapons. I wish it were that simple. A look at both history and a glance around the world tells me that it isn’t.

We came to a similar conclusion about alcohol in this country in 1919 when we implemented Prohibition with the 18^th Amendment to the Constitution. After 14 years of organized crime reaping record profits and committing an unprecedented level of violence as they fought for control of this illegal market, we repealed that “solution” with the 21^st Amendment.

Today, we’re fighting that same hopeless battle against marijuana. This recreational drug has never been more popular. However its illegal status in the U.S. allows Mexican cartels to make all the profit, killing over 50K people in the past six years as they compete for routes and territories.

Making guns illegal will not keep guns out of the hands of those that would do evil with them. It would only prevent citizens from protecting themselves from violence and tyranny. It would also transfer the profits of the sale of those weapons exclusively to the criminal organizations that would continue to provide them to other criminals.

I do not know anything more about Friday morning’s mass murderer, Adam Lanza, than you do. I’ve read that he was troubled, that his mother, who he still lived with, was strict, and that his parents divorced three years ago. I don’t know who he hung out with, what his hobbies were, what television shows he watched, what video games he played, or if there were any warning signs that someone should have caught. But what I do know is that guns have been around for centuries. Guns are available to people all over the world. I also know that anger, hatred, poverty, and injustice exist all over the world and have since the earliest days of civilization. If all of those things are true, what makes our country and this past decade or two so different? Why do we have Columbine, Aurora, Clackamas, and now Newtown?

I believe the difference is our current culture and both the economy and the media that spawned and perpetuate it. I believe the United States has lost its moral way. People no longer have good jobs that they’re proud of. People are no longer confident that they have a secure future ahead of them. People no longer know and love their neighbors. People are no longer able to stay home and raise their children. They both work.  As a country, we decided two-income families should be the norm in order to continue the growth of our consumer-based economic policies. We decided it was better to spend than save. We decided shareholders were more important than workers. Instead of a parent being there to teach and guide our children about life and the differences between right and wrong, we could rely on poorly paid public educators and 24/7 television.

Instead of entertainment and news programming that depict the value of community, the wonders of love, and the benefits of giving, we’re deluged with reality tv, dramas, and sitcoms that bombard us with messages that we must be better looking, richer, greedier, meaner, sluttier, and famous at any cost if our lives are to mean anything. It’s more important to be a celebrity than to be a good person. Instead of video games where cute protagonists chomp dots or navigate mazes full of amusing baddies, we have hyper-realistic games of war or ultra-bloody carnage.

We’ve desensitized a generation to violence and marginalized charity and kindness in favor of gluttony and doom. I know turning around a culture is no easy or short-term task and by no means am I suggesting we can or should try to regulate our way to a more gentle nation. What I am saying is that perhaps it’s time all of us question ourselves. What is truly important? What warrants our time, our attention, our devotion, and our passion and have we misplaced those things today? When will we turn off the television and go outside? When will we stop shopping and start saving? When will we stop texting and start talking? And finally, when will we stop waiting for “them” to solve our country’s problems and start fixing them ourselves instead?