Perhaps it is time for a renewed perspective of this issue of “Mass Shootings.” While politicians and activists spar daily over the need for new laws vs. the sanctity of our Bill of Rights, more lives are lost. To join in the political fray would be futile. It would be exponentially more beneficial to address the obvious root of the problem and its equally obvious solution.
It is really quite simple: People are what they have been becoming. We are a society that boasts a diminishing estimation of the value of life, whether it is the unborn child, the terminally ill, or the ancient elder. And then there are the innocent victims of amoral heroes or sly villains on the big screens of Hollywood, or the little screens of our personal devices with their myriads of murderous video games, plastered with the carnage of gross violence. To many, in real life or in fantasy, taking a life has been reduced to easy money or points to top the high score. Stimulation for the innate wickedness of man is always very near, and the results are painfully and shamefully obvious.
But the sanctity of life is only part of the issue. If the world were otherwise moral, the blackness of our obsession with death would stand out to all; warning flags would be flung from every direction, and society would expel the evil. But it is hard to see just one aspect when the whole moral fabric of the civilized world is encompassed in the dark cancer of moral debauchery. Perhaps the cause can be summed up in the simple old adage, “Garbage In—Garbage Out.” Our society is producing thieves, rioters, adulterers, liars, etc. because we now call good evil and evil good. We have made every man the captain of his own fate, and that, without moral compass.
The solution can be stated in relatively few words. They are found on the pages of the Holy Scriptures: If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14). Perhaps most will not relinquish their command of life, but until we let God be God, sadly, there is no hope.