Note: On the Saturday before Christmas, News Views is devoted to a Christmas story. To maintain that tradition a News Views column on gun violence appears today. ***** I have some observations regarding the tragedy in Newtown, Conn. That’s where a deranged 20-year-old used a military-style rifle to kill his mom, 20 first-graders, six adult school staff members and himself. Of course everyone in the nation was stunned by selfish, sensless depravity of this crime – especially parents in general and parents of school-age children in particular. The entire nation truly grieves with that town, as it should. As it unfolded, a few things came to mind. First of all, what ever happened to responsible, accurate journalism in this country? News outlets were so busy stumbling all over each other trying so hard to be “first” with the news, they simply didn’t bother to verify anything. The mom was a teacher at the school. The father was shot to death in New Jersey. The shooter was Ryan. The rifle was left in the car. The victims were shot with handguns. All of these things – and I just plucked them off the top of my head from recollections of Friday afternoon’s TV coverage – were reported to us as fact. Yet they were all 100 percent wrong. That’s what the Internet does to journalism. There is only regard for who is first. Apparently, there is no regard for accuracy. Instead of waiting for officials or investigators to respond to their questions, journalists go with anybody they can find as a source. Anyone who is “close to the investigation” or who “speaks on the condition of anonymity.” And as awful as that is from the standpoint of professional journalism, you probably need to get used to it, because it’s not going to change anytime soon. I don’t really care so much about getting it first as getting it right, but it seems that sentiment has fallen out of style these days. Similarly, unfortunately and much more sadly, I am deeply concerned this Connecticut travesty is something we might as well get used to as well. That’s because the problem is so complex and so daunting. And while I am not generally a defeatist, I have a hard time envisioning how we fix this problem. Certainly, the ready accessibility of firearms in the U.S. has to be considered. But I am afraid no matter how many gun laws we pass – and we’ve already passed thousands – the problem won’t go away. Calif. Sen. Barbara Boxer is calling for banning “assault weapons.” OK, fine. Ban assault weapons again. These weapons were banned from 1994 to 2004. Remember Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.? It was a mass shooting in 1999. The shooters used Tech 9 semi-automatics, which had been banned five years earlier. That’s because when lawmakers ban these things they ban the manufacture of them. It’s not retroactive. So all the ones that previously existed – and there are millions of them – are still available for sale to the masses. The price goes up, to be sure. But if they ban assault weapons tomorrow, you can go to the gunshop Monday and buy one. The only way to get these weapons completely out of circulation in the U.S. would be for the government to go house to house and either confiscate them or buy them back from their law-abiding owners. But even if the government confiscated every assault weapon in America, there still would be hundreds of millions more handguns, shotguns and rifles available for people bent on destruction. Federal laws have created “gun-free zones” at places like schools and shopping malls. Of course these are precisely the places the maniacs choose to terrorize. Gun-free zones are target-rich environments where shooters have no fear of armed resistance – at least until someone dials 911 and the police arrive. Mental health issues certainly have to be considered. But how does one reliably predict if and when someone is going to snap? Literally millions of people live just as these mass murderes lived. Cloistered loners. Seemingly antisocial. Laws currently on the books – osbensibly to protect the civil rights of the mentally ill – make it virtually impossible to identify potentially violent people and intervene in their behavior. These people seem “weird” to friends and family members, but they largely remain under the radar of law enforcement because they commit no crimes until that one fateful day. All the aforementioned are daunting problems that must be considered when addressing the problem of gun violence. But the question I keep coming back to is, “What could possibly drive someone to do such a horrific thing?” Well, here – in part – is what I wrote in 1999 after the Columbine shooting. We are all helpless. We are all remorseful. What can we do? I hear the government talking about task forces, about new gun laws, about surveys, studies and handbooks. We have to do something. But does anybody really think any of that will make a dent? Will any of that help quell the violence, help erase the hate? We have created this society. A society of tolerance. A society of political correctness. We have created a society where there are few rights, wrongs or absolutes. There are situational ethics. There is moral relativism. We have raised rationalization to an art form. We can rationalize and excuse virtually any type of deviant behavior. The perpetrators are the victims. Victims of their social environment. Victims of substance abuse. Victims of a bad childhood. Personal responsibility is an outdated concept. Our deviant behavior is someone else’s fault. We can’t be held responsible. We stand idly by and accept these concepts because we fear that we might be labeled judgmental if we oppose them. We have completely desensitized a generation of our youth to sex and violence. We feed them a steady diet of violence in all forms of “entertainment.” The most popular musicians are the ones who have the most vile lyrics. The best-selling video games are the ones that are the most bloodily graphic. Today’s continual stream of gratuitous savagery has to have an effect on our society, on our children. We truly have created a culture of violence. There is no denying that media in America are enormously influential. And media in America glorify violence. Violence as a means to an end, a way to solve problems. Violence as art. Violence as fun. At the same time, we have removed any sense of final, moral judgment from the minds of many of our youths. They believe there is no power higher than the cops or the government. Government and media have trivialized and belittled religion. People who consider themselves religious tend to keep it to themselves for fear of being labeled old-fashioned, unenlightened or just plain stupid. People who suggest that perhaps we should “do unto others” are accused of attempting to force their morality on someone else. The value of human life itself has been degraded. We abort 1.3 million babies a year. The least safest place for a child in America is in its mother’s womb. Over the years, slowly, inadvertently, we have crafted the perfect social recipe for a ruthless predator. Start with a pre-teen male. Show him a couple thousand graphic murders a year on television and film to desensitize him from violence. Fill his spare time with violent music and violent video games. Remove any sense of final judgment, morality or responsibility for his own actions. Remove any sense of respect for the sanctity of human life. Instill in him a sense that self is the single most important thing in life. Instill in him a sense of materialism and consumerism. Then label him a failure for being different or not measuring up. Make him feel left out. Make him feel the need for 15 minutes of fame. Make him want to do something, anything, for recognition. Then stand back and wait for the inevitable. When the bullets fly, those who support the policies that nurture this culture of violence wring their hands and wonder why. I think those words remain stunningly relevant today and seem jarringly prescient in their 13-year-old context. That’s why I am so heavy hearted when I see these tragedies unfold again and again. I hope and pray that I am wrong. But I am very afraid we have strayed too far into a culture of violence. We may never be able to escape the horrific consequences.
