Horror and Heartbreak in Uvalde

The peaceful rural Texas town of Uvalde grieves today in the aftermath of a ghoulish  rampage. A teenager ambushed an elementary school, indiscriminately murdering little children.  Tiny kids huddled in terror, savagely gunned down.  Again and again the teenager fired until he was shot dead.

The bloodbath traumatized the close-knit community of 16,000 and stunned Americans.  Schools are becoming killing fields. This year our nation has endured 27 school killings, a deadly record. Unfathomable grief and a lifetime of nightmares left in the violent wake of each carnage.

Every American is posing the same question.  What is wrong with our country?  Answering that requires peering into the soul of our nation. Teenagers, especially young males, are more violent. Troubled.  Often abused.  Disconnected. The term "lone wolf" is used to describe these gunmen.  

After a macabre killing spree, the nation should be united in its resolve to never, ever allow our children to be harmed again.  You can judge a country by how it values its children.  Unfortunately, in gruesome times such as these, Washington erupts into partisan bickering and name-calling.  Shameful. Disgusting.

The knee-jerk reaction is to ban guns. That will stop the killing.  But I grew up in an era where everyone, teenagers included, owned guns in Mississippi.  My high school parking lot was littered with trucks sporting racks of rifles and shotguns. No one feared someone would open fire at students. 

Guns are a handy scapegoat for killings.  But why do so many teenagers use weapons to maim in the first place? Especially a youth who has his whole life ahead.  This may be uncomfortable to hear, but there has been a steady, but precipitous decline in moral values. Life is no longer precious.  

A culture of violence consumes America.  Violence is seething in the mean streets of big cities, on streaming services, in movies, video games, on social media and on the internet. We can't ignore it.  But we do. Impressionable minds become numb to violence and the killing of a human being.

Pervasive evil is dismissed as psychiatric disorder.  Many shooters are clearly mentally ill.  But often after killing sprees, students, parents and teachers admit they spotted odd or rebellious behavior.  But no one acts on their instinct to take action.  It's too late after the fact. Why did they wait?

Why don't students tell adults about disturbed classmates? They don't want to be called snitches.  They are afraid of being bullied, reprimanded by a teacher or being confronted by parents demanding to know why their child is being questioned.  We have to make it comfortable for kids to say what they see.

In the Uvalde tragedy, the killer allegedly sent inappropriate texts to girls. Teen girls whispered about his threats to harm them. A few residents said the killer was bullied because of a stutter with a lisp. At one point, the Washington Post reported, the youth cut his own face with a knife for fun.

No one informed police of his behavior. Unfortunately, the incessant demonizing of police in the culture has caused a growing hostility toward law enforcement. Even in a tight knit community, people are afraid to tell police. Americans don't want to get involved. This needs to change immediately. 

This evil that stalks our nation is disguised as aberrant behavior.  Just kids acting up. However, there are deep mental health issues afflicting young people. Drug use among teenagers is rising. Suicides are spiking. Acts of self harm are escalating.  When will we address these issues? How long will it take?

In every single school massacre, the killer leaves a trail on social media.  The Uvalde murderer posted on Facebook he was going to shoot his grandmother.  He shot her in the face and then bragged online. Later, he posted he was about to open fire at a school. Facebook failed to alert authorities.

Social media is the sewer that enables evil.  Facebook's vaunted algorithms are supposed to ferret out threats of violence.  In virtually every school massacre, the killer wants attention. They act out online and then murder the defenseless.  It is a pattern.  Police know it. So does Facebook. 

The killer, I refuse to mention his name, also posted a picture on Instagram of an AR (Assault Rifle) and a backpack full of ammunition. He put up videos on the social media platform screaming at his mother and cursing her as she tried to kick him out of the house. Police were not notified.

When is the nation going to hold social media companies criminally responsible for their irresponsible business practices?  Facebook owns Instagram.  Facebook's PR executive dodged any responsibility. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is hiding from the media.  They value profit over young lives.

You will hear many solutions from Washington.  Most of them won't do anything to solve the real problems.  Our society has too many broken homes.  Too many single parent households.  Too many abused children.  Too many negligent parents.  Ignoring these problems ensures future slaughter.

Often police or armed school guards are the last line of defense against an armed invasion of a school.  In Uvalde, an ongoing investigation reveals police did not immediately rush the shooter.  A back entry to the school was carelessly left ajar.  Police and the school need to be held accountable.  

There are no quick fixes.  Protecting our school children is the top priority.  Schools are soft targets for evil.  Governments should provide funding to harden every school. There needs to be a single entry with double doors and cameras. Armed guards on premises.  Is that too much to ask?

Mental health services need to be beefed up in communities and schools.  Employing a school counselor is not a solution.  Our children are left under the protection of teachers and administrators who often fail to notice or remain reluctant to report red-flag mental issues. They must be empowered to act.

Parents must inspect what they expect at school.  They need to be involved in every aspect of their children's education, including school safety.  Regular contact with teachers and counselors might help parents learn about a child's behavioral problems at school. Parents must make the time to do it.

After a tragedy, our nation has a history of praying, weeping and demanding results for a few weeks.  Then leaders move on to another crisis before solving the most important job America has: protecting its children.  If we cannot guarantee our children's safety, then we don't value God's most precious gift. 

School Shootings: Ban Violence Now

Our nation remains numbed by the horrific shooting at a Florida high school.  The random murder of innocent children is so evil we cannot comprehend it.  In our grief, we fumble for answers and motives but none make sense. How can they?  Our despair leaves us feeling helpless and hopeless.

This is becoming an all too familiar nightmare.  Since 1990, there have been 70 shootings at kindergartens, elementary, middle and high schools killing more than 150 children and adults, according to a Wall Street Journal review of federal statistics.

In the aftermath of each shooting, a pattern emerges.  Police missed the telltale signs of a troubled individual prone to violence.  School kids and often teachers knew the shooter was a ticking time bomb. Yet no one stopped the youth from his deadly desire.  That should haunt every American.

In the hunt for answers, the narrative always shifts to gun control.  It is the false-hope solution.  There is no evidence gun control stops violence.  Countries such as Belgium, France and the Netherlands have stricter gun control laws but their mass shooting rates are as high as the U.S. 

Pandering politicians often single out Australia as a shining example to emulate.  In 1987, Australia launched a buyback program for certain lethal weapons.  More than a million guns were confiscated. Since then, gun ownership in Australia has grown three times faster than the population.

Guns aren't the villain.  Guns have always been a part of America.  What has changed is the media's cultural appropriation of weapons and death.  Influential media--music, movies, video games, Internet and social media--celebrate guns and violence.  The evidence is all around us, but we ignore it.

Consider that as this is written there are scores of rap songs with lyrics about weapons and killing. A current rap song contains this line: "I gotta gun and your family will be resting with you." From raw country to gangsta rap to hardcore hip hop, lyrics and music videos glorify violence and guns.

Exposure to such swill pollutes young souls.  A 2017 study shared by JAMA Pediatrics concluded that "children who see movie characters use guns are more likely to use guns themselves." Even movies rated PG-13, often contain brutal killings, guns, bloody fights and wanton destruction.

The National Center for Health Research (NCHR) has published a number of studies that document playing violent video games increases aggressive thoughts, feelings and behavior in real life.  In fact, researchers have concluded video games are more harmful than movies because they are interactive.

Social media is the newest platform for gratuitous violence.  Young people on social media and the Internet are exposed to a steady stream of dehumanizing, graphically violent, ghastly images.  Teens spend nearly nine hours every day consuming media.  Nine hours. Think about that.

Americans have no excuse for claiming they are unaware of the cultural rot.  As early as 2000, the American Psychiatric Association and the Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry cited more than 1,000 studies asserting the connection between media violence and behavior.

How many more young people have to become addicted to violence peddled in music, movies, social media and video games until we act?  Before we ban a single gun, our children would be safer and less troubled if America outlawed gun killings, violence and graphic mayhem in media.

Hollywood glitterati, musicians and others will protest that freedom of expression protects their right to hawk violence.  These hypocrites are the first to clamor for banning guns but the last to take ownership of their contributions to the problem.  Why do we allow them to skirt responsibility?

In addition to banning violent gun images and words, America should compel the news media to quit making celebrities out of criminals whose only claim to fame is killing human beings.  Their names and faces should only appear after they are charged.  And then never again in public.

Perhaps, this latest slaughter of children will be the wake up call that finally shakes Americans out of their tendency to fall for easy solutions.  Every American who wants to protect children should fight to clean up the raw sewage that is being dumped on our impressionable kids by irresponsible media.

How long must we wait until America tackles this festering problem?