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The horrific massacre of the innocents in a peaceful Connecticut town is on all our minds. We wish we could get it out of our minds, but we can’t. And we shouldn’t. Clearly, the 20 children and seven adults are already 27 too many. We must not add truth to the casualty list. Difficult as it is at a trying time, we need to think clearly.
● We need to think about how we are bringing up our young people to handle frustration – or not handle it.
● We need to think about the fact we are not bringing up children – we are bringing up future adults.
● We need to think about how children need their parents to be parents – not just friends.
● We need to think about how working parents are often absent for much of their children’s day – and then overindulge them in the short time they do share.
● We need to think about what kind of adults are produced by alternating absence and overindulgence – and whether we would want to be around adults like that.
● We need to think about how we are passing on ethical principles to the next generation – or not passing them on.
● We need to think about how beautiful flowers must be carefully tended and nurtured – but how only weeds grow spontaneously.
● We need to think about what children really need to become responsible adults – and how even $325,000 a year and a palatial house may not suffice.
● We need to think about how we removed the Ten Commandments from schoolrooms and courthouses – and how we replaced them with nothing.
● We need to think about how we removed the Boy Scouts, ROTC, and Christmas programs from schools – and replaced them with nothing.
● We need to think about why it is “progressive” to tear things down – and replace them with nothing.
● We need to think about our legacy for the next generation – and how a bequest of money is helpful, but a legacy of moral values is essential.
● We need to think about how we taught the next generation to act on the basis of what their “hearts” tell them – but we forgot how diverse “hearts” can be, and that some people have none.
● We need to think about how we were persuaded to view the mentally ill only as people who need their civil rights protected – and not as patients who need treatment, for their own sakes and for the sake of their potential victims.
● We need to think about how the vast majority of the mentally ill, including schizophrenics, are nonviolent – but not to forget the violent minority that cannot be predicted with accuracy.
● We need to think about how we were deceived into viewing mind-altering drugs as an economic problem that could be solved by legalizing them to remove the profit motive – and not as a moral problem that rots the mind and the soul.
● We need to think about how the toxic effects of cocaine or amphetamines cannot be distinguished from paranoid schizophrenia – except by stopping the drug and seeing if the psychosis improves, though it may not resolve completely.
● We need to think about how guns, like hammers and screwdrivers, are tools – and how they are used depends on the user.
● We need to think about nations where guns are almost unavailable – but where schoolchildren are massacred with machetes and hammers.
● We need to think about how we were misled to believe that a gun-free world would be nonviolent – when merely watching “Braveheart” would show this belief to be absurd.
● We need to think about how we were misled to believe that America is the most violent nation – though this is very far from the truth.
● We need to think about how we were misled to believe that violence increases if guns are more available – when in fact 1900, when guns of all types could be bought without restriction, had a homicide rate lower than the current rate.
● We need to think about how we were misled to believe that the homicide rate is rising – when in fact it has been falling for years, despite increased gun sales.
● We need to think about the motives of the people who mislead us this way – and what they plan to do after they disarm us: Censor talk radio? Control the Internet? Arrest those who disagree?
● We need to think about why some people want to supersede the Constitutional Second Amendment with a U.N. Arms Trade Treaty – when the leading supplier of terrorists, Iran, was elected to a top position on the treaty conference recently held in New York.
● We need to think about how often guns are used to thwart crimes – and about why these events rarely appear in newspapers or on TV news.
● We need to think about the fact that the right to keep and bear arms, like all rights, comes with responsibilities attached – and if too many people abandon their responsibilities, we all risk losing our rights.
● We need to think about how the mass murderer got into the school – and devise ways to make this harder, without turning schools into grim fortresses.
● We need to think about how the “gunman” ( no, the mass murderer) committed his crime – and how it could have been as bad, or even worse, if he had entered the school with a five-gallon container of gasoline and ignited it.
● We need to think about how Israelis reacted after the Ma’alot massacre of 22 schoolchildren – they armed teachers and prevented further massacres.
● We need to think about “gun-free” zones like the Connecticut school and the Colorado movie theater – and how easily they become free-fire zones for criminals and crazies.
● We need to think about how Europe is held up as a model of nonviolence and gun control – and yet Europe still has episodes of mass murder of young people.
● We need to think about how President Bush was ridiculed for calling terrorist states an “axis of evil” – but how evil can no longer be denied now that it has come to call at home.
● We need to think about how we have become habituated to reacting according to our feelings – rather than according to rational consideration of the benefits and risks of possible courses of action.
In short, we need to grieve. And then we need to think.
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