Why are These School Shootings Happening?

After ever school shooting I hear the immediate obvious question, “Why are these shootings happening?” In our age of instant communication through social media I hear the same question from Hollywood heroes, popular sports players and coaches, well known billionaires, and of course the politicians who chime in from every part of the country. People are asking the question but I wonder if deep down in their hearts they already know the answer but are unwilling to face up to the cost of taking a stand that is not politically correct.

“Politically correct” is another way of saying “Believe what we tell you or else! If you fail to do so you will pay in the arena of public opinion, and keep in mind that we control most of the media in this country.” So there you have it. When people ask “Why is this happening? They are probably not wanting the answer you would give but the irresponsible one they have been touting for years. The result is a drastic hardening of opinions on both sides of the argument and an empty bucket of answers leading to no change in the status quo.

Once we know the answer to the “why” question we can go to work on solutions that make sense. Without knowing the why of the matter any solutions will be a waste of time and will just deepen the political division that is getting worse as I write these words.

In asking the why question it might help to ask “Why did we not see these murderous shootings in earlier days?” As an old timer raised on a farm in Washington in the 50s I can assure you that these shootings are a recent problem. You’ve probably heard these stories but they need to be repeated until we get to the bottom of this “why” question. I was raised in a small town when almost everyone had a gun of some kind. Most of us were hunters. The high school students who were going hunting after school would have their rifles in the window rack behind their seat and nobody thought anything of it. I doubt if they even locked the doors on their pickups. This was common across the country in areas where hunting was common.

Rifles were everywhere and yet school shootings NEVER happened. I don’t even remember hearing of any accidents due to a weapon misfiring. Our fathers taught us how to be safe with a weapon and how dangerous it can be when used carelessly. It is estimated that there are over 400 million guns in America, mostly in the hands of civilian citizens. Between that time and now something has changed in our country and it isn’t guns. If we find the answer to this “why” question we will be able to find solutions that really work instead of give a political party more power.

So what has changed since those peaceful days on the farm in Washington years ago? Families have changed. I remember a fellow student telling me that his parents were divorced and I had to ask him what divorce was because I had never heard of it. Divorce was rare because those were the days before “no fault” divorce became common starting in California in 1969. It’s no accident that this decision followed the sex revolution and women’s movement of the 60s. Now the United States has the greatest divorce rate of any country by far. In 1965 24% of black infants and 3.1% of white infants were born into families without a father. That number rose rapidly after the 60s. Today, 73% of Black Americans,66% Native American Indians 53% Hispanic and,29% White, and are born to unmarried couples.

So, slowly in America it became common to have single parents trying to raise children. Without the moral guidance provided by two supporting parents, children began to drift toward various levels of rebellion. Children need both parents to develop in a wholesome way. In big cities like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia that drifting has led to growth of gangs mostly of misplaced young people and regular shootings. Chicago alone had 51 shootings, nine deaths and 42 injured just this past weekend after the Uvalde murders. Even as the Uvalde tragedy was still in the news guns erupted across the nation in various shootings.

The civil rights laws of 1964 and 1965 tried to address this problem by declaring a war on poverty. These efforts merely worsened the problem by giving these inner city parents an incentive for staying unmarried because they received assistance money from the government. There was little incentive for fathers to get a job and provide for their families when the government became the father of all of these abandoned children. These children have too often become the shooters we are writing about.

Also in the 60s men in black robes decided that it is unconstitutional to pray in school or to read the Bible in classes. Prayers at graduations or school board meetings or most other activities were banned and the Bible with its principles became a forbidden book. Our schools became a bastion of atheism. Many secularists simply shrug their shoulders and reply “so what” to these events but history shows that these decisions mark the beginning of moral collapse in America.

From 1962 onward the moral structure of our country has collapsed. The big cities are a cesspool of moral dilemmas that cannot be solved without intervention from God. All of the following moral issues have exploded since 1962: Divorce, sexually transmitted diseases, pornography, gang violence, murders, domestic violence, abortion on demand, drug/alcohol abuse, defunding of police, prostitution, teen pregnancy, rape, internet abuse, parentless children and prosecution corruption. We are finding out the hard way what happens when we reject God and His word from the public discourse.

Recent political actions have caused these problems to worsen beyond anyone’s predictions. Democrat controlled cities experienced drastic violence with attacks on police, burned out businesses, violent protests, widespread homelessness, and extensive crime. The political left shrugged their shoulders. Making it even worse has been government incompetence fueled by progressive prosecutors who release arrested criminals back onto the streets in keeping with the anti-incarceration attitude of the political left. The District Attorney in Los Angeles, for example, cut the police department’s budget by $150 million and proposed a “do not prosecute” list that includes trespassing, making criminal threats, prostitution, public intoxication and much more. The message has been sent: “Crime is acceptable and we will not hold criminals responsible.”

All across America in Democrat controlled cities crime is exploding because criminals are not being held accountable. Lawlessness creates an atmosphere that leads to the kinds of violent shootings we see across the country. One party has taken the position that we need to reform criminals rather than punish them for their crime. The problem is that with the downplaying of law enforcement there have been no reform policies put into effect that work. Many of our leaders do not understand the failing nature of humanity — without God we are prone to sin and lawlessness. Progressive people seem to think that we humans are basically good and we merely need to use the government to bring out the hidden goodness. That thinking has failed at every turn and the present push toward Marxism will fail for the same reason.

You (the controlling left) have used our schools to teach that there is no God and that humans are merely the descendants of animals. You teach this in our schools and do not allow any debate or dissent to be taught. What did you expect of our young people when you taught them for years that they are merely animals and that they are not created in the image of God? Do you not see how some young people in the confusion this causes will revert to the animal behavior you have instilled in them?

You make schools and other places gun free zones and wonder why the lawbreakers choose these places for their killing. The Second Amendment was written to allow us to protect ourselves from the ones who believe they are animals without accountability. Gun free zones invite the criminals to come and destroy to their heart’s delight. The guns cannot kill unless there is a depraved animal and a zone where there are unprotected innocent people. Gun free zones are chosen by shooters 94% of the time as places to practice their evil.

So, I ask again, “Why are these shootings happening?” Guns are not the cause. Recent FBI data showed that knives cause five times as many deaths as these rifles. Fentanyl and other drugs have taken the lives of nearly 108,000 lives in 2020, an increase of 14.9% and yet the government that is concerned about gun deaths does virtually nothing to address this issue. In fact, the present administration in its friendly attitude toward Communist China has simply turned their backs on China’s invasion of our country with fentanyl that is killing our young people by the thousands. Why is there not outrage at this indisputable danger to our children?

So, why are these shooting happening? The answer is so simple it is staring us in the face and we cannot see it. We have abandoned the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” as recorded in the Declaration of Independence. We ignore everything He has said to us and wonder why our actions produce the stealing, killing and destruction of the enemy of God (John 10:10). The political left is directly responsible for most of the government actions since 1962 that have utterly failed us as a nation and then they turn around and blame an inanimate object for the problem.

Shame on you for fearing a gun but not fearing the consequences of the behaviors laid out in this article! You will not solve this problem until you see the “why” of the issue and begin to address it with a sincere desire to abandon your craving for power and begin the common sense, clear answers that are staring us all in the face.