Agenda vs. Morality

            Why are liberals so determined to pass gun control? They claim that the United States needs more gun control laws in order to protect the students in our schools. They do not remember or cannot understand that guns were on school campuses for many years before anyone thought to shoot at the students. It just does not make sense to pass more gun control laws when the laws already on the books do not work. There must be something else that is causing the massacres at the schools.

            Walter E. Williams is a professor of economics at George Mason University. He is also a man with common sense. He recently posted an article entitled “Hidden Agenda or Ignorance?” here. Williams shares the following statistics. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that there are 30 Americans who die every day in car crashes involving drunk driving. The FBI’s 2015 Uniform Crime Report says that knives (1,573) of some kind kill three times more people than shotguns and rifles combined (548). Why are there no calls to control cars or knives?

Any mature and reasonable person would argue that it is utter nonsense to deal with drunk driving deaths and knife deaths by having federal background checks and waiting periods to obtain a driver’s license or to purchase a car or knife. One would recognize, just as courts and the general public do, that cars and knives are inanimate objects and cannot act on their own. Therefore, if we want to do something about deaths resulting from drunk driving or being stabbed or hacked to death, we must focus on individuals. It would be folly and gross negligence of victims for us to focus on inanimate objects like cars and knives. Guns are also inanimate objects and like cars and knives cannot act on their own. It’s also plain folly to focus on guns in the cases of shooting deaths. …

We must own up to the fact that laws and regulations alone cannot produce a civilized society. Morality is society’s first line of defense against uncivilized behavior. Moral standards of conduct have been under siege in our country for over a half a century. Moral absolutes have been abandoned as guiding principles. We’ve been taught not to be judgmental, that one lifestyle or set of values is just as good as another. We no longer hold people accountable for their behavior and we accept excuse-making. Problems of murder, mayhem and other forms of anti-social behavior will continue until we regain our moral footing.

            The title of Williams’ article is “Hidden Agenda or Ignorance?” He is nice enough to put it as a question, but I am willing to say that it is a hidden agenda to disarm American citizens. I do not believe that anyone could be so ignorant as to believe that guns can kill on their own. Having been around guns for my entire life, I can state unequivocally that guns do not get up by themselves and shoot people! Guns are inanimate objects just like cars and knives. None of them can do anything without the help of a human being.

            We must stop blaming guns for the lack of moral standards in our nation. Parents are the first line of defense and teaching. They must become parents instead of friends for their children. Once they have completed their job of teaching and training their children to become a responsible part of society, then they can be friends with their adult children. It is wonderful to be able to consider your children as some as your best friends. We must also bring moral standards of behavior back into our society. We must stand on our principles and declare that there is both good and evil in the world. We must hold children, teens, and adults responsible for bad behavior and teach them to stop making excuses. In other words, we must make America great again.