It Happened Again!

Last week another gun unlocked itself from a gun case, loaded itself, and then walked into a school and started shooting people; Just as they did in Las Vegas months before. How many more people have to die before someone does something to stop the carnage caused by guns in America?

If this narrative sounds silly, it's because it is silly. Every time there is a shooting in this country the people who suffer from cognitive dissonance (i.e.,"liberals") start chanting for gun control. Was this a tragedy? Of course it was. But, knee jerk reactions are not the answer to this problem. Guns are not the problem. Guns have been around for well over two centuries, these mass shootings are relatively new. Before the eighties, they were nearly non-existent. In fact with the exception of the government perpetrated school shooting at Kent State in 1970, I can't recall even one.

I would also like to point out that I grew up in the sixties and seventies. When I went to school, people actually did carry guns to school. Almost every pick-up truck in the small town of Newberry, Florida had a gun rack with at least one gun in it. I recall seeing many of these trucks in my school parking lot. Not one of those guns ever made it's way into the school though and killed anyone. They remained peacefully in their gun rack my entire time while I attended school there.

Guns are just tools and as with any tool, they can serve a good purpose or a bad purpose. That's up to the person using the tool. The fact that there has been an increase in violence at schools involving guns cannot be denied. But, just as we do not blame the car for drunk drivers killing people, guns are no more to blame for this than cars are.

So, what has changed in the last few decades? Not guns. We have had guns in this country for centuries, so why would they suddenly be to blame for what are relatively recent school shootings over the last few decades? What changed in the last few decades that correlates with the same time frame as these mass school shootings?

Is it just a coincidence that right about the same time these school shootings began psychotropic drugs were being prescribed to children who suddenly needed to be treated for illnesses that until that time were unheard of for the most part? These drugs may actually be a prescription for these mass shootings.

While it's true that correlation does not mean causation, it might be a good place to start. Maybe it's time we stopped medicating our kids for made up conditions that were invented to enrich the pharmaceutical companies. Guns are not the problem. They are merely a scapegoat.