Yesterday, another mass shooting took place at a high school in Florida.  They are becoming so common that we almost ignore them.  But what disturbs me most is the knee-jerk reactions that I am seeing in the media – both social and news, as well as in politics.

We did not have mass shootings in schools when I grew up.  In fact, as many have pointed out, it was not uncommon for someone to have a gun rack in the back window of the pickup, or for students to wear cammo to school.  While I have never done the former (I have never had a truck), I have done the latter.  People did not freak out then, but they do now…and, sadly to say, rightfully so.  But how did we get here?

Those knee-jerk reactions are so simplistic that it bothers me.  The cries for gun control or prayer in school are louder than any other plea.  And there is a kernel of truth to each of these solutions.  But we have to have a more reasoned approach if we are going to figure out how we have gotten to this place, and, more importantly, how to get beyond this.

Here are my reflections,  in no particular order.

• We have lost our sense of morality – there has been a giant rush to get rid of traditional morality, our sense of right and wrong.  Part of it is because it causes us to feel guilty when we get caught not living up to the standard.  But that is a part of it.  Our guilt, our conscience, our fear has kept us out of a lot of trouble!  The sexual revolution has taken sex out of the traditionally moral confines of marriage, and placed it as something to act out on casually, like having a hamburger.  But the consequence has been that we are questioning other moral stances.  I will get more into this in a later point.  But we have effectively quieted the conscience, and people are suffering personally, and corporately as other people are harmed by our lack of morality.
• We have redefined and devalued of the role of family.  Like the point above, our sense of guilt has been replaced with anything goes, and the traditional family has been obliterated.  The creation story has God creating family right along creating people (A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife – at this point in the story has God creating Adam and Eve, there was no such thing as a mother or father.  God was establishing marriage as the core of society).  We have redefined marriage (no longer just a man and a woman), but have devalued marriage where living together outside of marriage is not frowned upon.  Our divorce rate is astronomical, and even higher among couples who lived together prior to marriage.  There is no sense of the high virtue of family.  Now, many are going to say that families are not virtuous, and that is because we have not taught the place and roles of family.
• We view fathers as unnecessary – Fathers are not valued at all.  Honestly, there are a lot of fathers who have not acted honorably either!  My dad taught me gun safety, as well as how to handle a gun.  But my dad taught me a lot more.  As he taught me about outdoorsmanship, he also taught me to be a man of integrity and honor.  There are a lot of ways that I am different from my Dad, but there are a lot of ways I am just like him.  For far too long, women have said that they don’t need to have a man around to raise a child, but I say that your child desperately needs a loving father.  We would not have as many messed up gender identity issues if we were to have stable families with a man and a woman who are committed for a lifetime together (’till death do us part).  Men, instead of being a “playa'”, be a man and honor women, and treat them like ladies.  If you create a child, be that child’s father, not just a financial check.  I realize that I am coming from a world view that is extremely hated by many (that is where our culture is these days).  I know that when I mention that my wife and I will celebrate our 40th anniversary in May, people look at me as if I am from a different planet!
• We don’t have relationships, we have isolation – Our culture has become more isolated, and much less social.  Even when we are together, in the presence of each other, we are still isolating ourselves by drawing into our cocoon of a phone.  The next time you go to a restaurant, look at how many people are talking to each other, and how many people are looking at that phone.  Several years ago, I will never forget my wife fussing at me for taking a call from a client while we were on vacation.  But now, not only do we take and place calls on our personal phones, we are also burying our heads in facebook, twitter, snapchat, and other “social media” experiences.  A bunch of the older men were sitting on a pew in the hallway at the nursing home where I do some work, and I sat down and said, the only thing missing is our sticks where we whittle.  I remember seeing the guys in Pontotoc, MS in the town square, sitting on the park bench, talking to one another, with their pocket knives out, and shaving a stick.  They were talking to each other.  People get into a panic if they leave home without their cell phone.  I admit it.  I do the same thing.  But I am getting better at it.  After all, my watch will take and place calls if my phone is not present.  OOPS!  GUILTY!  We all are.  We need to text, check FaceBook, and other sites.  We need to play games, and other activities, all of which keeps our necks bent, our the tops of our heads prominent.  We are not looking each other in the eyes.  We are looking at peoples foreheads (at best).  We don’t see people.  We see interruptions from our lonely world of being glued to our technology.
• We don’t see people any more. – People are not important.  Our definition of friend is that of an acquaintance whose name we have clicked on in social media.  It used to be that a friend is one whom you do life with, and they with you.  Because we have redefined friend as an acquaintance, those people do not become important to us.  A friend of mine was diagnosed with cancer and had surgery to get rid of that cancer, and we drove several hundred miles to be there, and support them and give them assistance.  That friend matters to me.  But those deep relationships have vanished in our culture.  Like I said above, we don’t even look at each other, but, in fact, we consider people a bother.  I know of those who won’t attend funerals because it makes them feel uncomfortable.  But funerals are for that very reason!  We attend funerals, not because of the person who has passed, but because we care about those around that person who are left behind, as well as helping ourselves deal with that great of a loss in our life.  Ok, buckle your seat belt for this next statement!  People are devalued so much that we kill them out of convenience or hardships to be had, and call it a choice!  Harsh statement, but true.  The amount of abortions that are committed are minuscule when done for a medical reason.  It truly is a choice, and it is a choice of convenience.  If that is too harsh for you to read, then you might want to skip the next sentence.  We have no right to act righteously horrified by the killing of the Jews in the Holocaust’s gas chambers, yet think it is perfectly “ok” for the millions of people who have been executed in the abortion chambers in America.
• We view church attendance as unimportant.  Church makes us feel guilty because we are confronted with our sinfulness when we compare ourselves with a Holy God.  Are churches perfect?  ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!  But you have a better chance of getting your morality in check (see above), and your family healed, and your life restored to mental, moral, and social health by giving your life to Jesus Christ.  Is that preachy?  You bet it is.  Church is a place where broken people can go to find hope, and a community that is separate from the rest of this society.  It is a place to be barraged with the Word of God, and the Good News of Jesus Christ, as opposed to all of the bad news and the fake news of the media.
• We are trying to minimize and sanitize God from society.  – I have touched on this already, but I want to visit it again.  Our culture is trying its best to remove any and all references to God.  The Bible is not seen as an answer book, but as a weapon.  Now that last part is the fault of us as Christians.  We have weaponized the “Thou Shalt Not’s” of Exodus and ignored the Beattitudes of love and grace in Matthew 5.  In many ways, it is Christians that have turned others off to Jesus, when we should be just the opposite.  But all of this rush to get rid of the shrillness of Christianity, we have also tossed out the glory of the ultimate gift of Jesus to wash away our sins, and make us free.
• Our games entertain us by having us perform the very same activity as a mass shooter – First person shooter games used to be that of space aliens and monsters.  I will never forget when I saw the first version of Castle Wolfenstein, as you went through the maze and shot the Nazi’s at point blank.  The graphics were terrible, and the killing was cartoonic.  Now, the graphics are so realistic, we are not shooting blocky images, but people with faces.  In fact, you have to strategize as to how make the most kills.  Our kids are spending hundreds of hours on these games, figuring out how to rob, beat, and kill people to win the game at hand.  In all honesty, there is no winning, just another level to kill more people.  And if that is not enough, we search for hacks and super powers to be more effective at killing people.  How much more training do we need to become effective at killing others?  Now there are those who think it would be even better than the video game to act out in real life – a kind of role playing game!
• Those who commit these heinous crimes become famous – People’s insecurities (due to lack of family, fathers, friends, or a society that cares about them) have them screaming for something or someone to say that they are important.  The ones who perpetrate these mass shootings know that their name will be put into the history books.  In their twisted minds, they believe that they become a somebody.  We have called it mental illness in our society.  Honestly, I wonder if it is not a mental illness, but rather a social illness where we, as a society have failed these individuals.
• It has been done before – This is kind of like the one above.  Once there is one, there are always going to be copy cats.  For example – the use of an AR15 rifle.  They look like the rifles that are issued by police and military or in the video games.  The gun site is a handle to carry it with, and it has a magazine that hold bullets, so it is easy to reload – just unclip and insert additional magazines.  However, they have one distinct difference.  Those rifles sold to the public can only fire once per trigger pull.  You can’t just hold down the trigger and the gun keeps firing.  Yet, you always hear about this gun being used in these mass shootings.  Now, because of the success of ISIS using vehicles, people are now using trucks to plow down people.  We call these copycat, because of the repetition of events using similar methods.  Frankly, once there was one incident, there are going to be duplicates because there are copy cats.  We can’t go back to the innocent age when these things didn’t happen.

We need better solutions than the one line slogans.  Each of us needs to look in the mirror and see if one or multiple of these things applies to our lives and fix it.  In all honesty, we can’t fix somebody else until we fix ourselves.  You can’t influence and mentor others until you yourself becomes a shining example.  Jesus called us to be a shining light /salt to our communities.  There has got to be a point where we all have to step up and be a part of the solution.  Are you living out your faith, uplifting your home, checking your morality, parenting your children, involving yourselves in community, and so forth?  There is no way to legislate this.  It is not the government’s role to do this for us.  It is high time we do this ourselves.  The problem is not them, it is us.