Guns Don’t Kill Innocent People, Mentally Disturbed People Do!
America is seeing a surge of gun violence like it has never seen before. Ever since the Columbine school shootings to the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings, the San Bernardino shooting, The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, and the Chabad of Poway synagogue shooting, which are just a few of the many horrific gun crimes that have taken innocent lives of children, men and women in this country. Outside this country, recently the Christchurch mosque shooting in New Zealand was a crime of hatred committed against the Muslims, just like the synagogue shootings were crimes of hatred against the Jewish community. Every human being has the right to practice their religion or faith uninterrupted, unhindered, in freedom and peace, without fear of being harmed, injured or killed.
Gunmen who are disturbed in the head, who have unresolved issues, or misunderstandings of a serious nature, choose “soft targets” like worship centers of any faith because they know they can inflict maximum damage to large groups of people, especially the elderly, unarmed men, women and children. In most of the gun shooting incidents, men are predominantly the perpetrators of these crimes. In the San Bernardino shooting, a Muslim woman and her husband were brainwashed to kill innocent people here in America.
Gun violence has orphaned so many children. Gun violence has made so many widows. Gun violence has made so many widowers. Gun violence has so cruelly torn American families apart. Gun violence has taken so many innocent lives. I believe the following to be true:
“In the hands of a good guy, guns protect lives from being taken, saving the lives of innocents and the good guy himself. In the hands of a bad guy, guns will take the lives of innocents, leaving the bad guy standing alone, with all the innocents dead in the end.”
America has to solve this, get to the bottom of this mind-numbing, senseless carnage caused by people, who cannot think for themselves, who have sought gun violence as a last resort, as a means to bring justice for a cause they feel has not been addressed by society.
The purpose of my article is for society to think collectively and take action toward solving this violence, once and for all. We have to look at the many layers that are plaguing our communities and societies at large. Let us examine it closer, to find out why we stand where we stand. Here’s what we must examine:
Why is AMERICA at this crossroads of hatred and gun violence today? There is no clear and simple answer. Industrialization started in America in the 1790’s. But guns were a speed product of industrialization. “The first gun in America probably came here in 1607, when the colonists first landed ,” then-Sen. Bob Smith (R-N.H.) said in 1999, in the aftermath of the shootings at Columbine High School. Guns existed as early as the 1400s. The first recorded use of a gun was in 1364. In 1380 the use of handguns spread across Europe. In 1892, automatic handguns were introduced into society, a hundred years after industrialization started in America.
Fast forward to the 1990s, when the internet started, no one knew what “the internet” was. “On 6 August 1991, the World Wide Web went live to the world. There was no fanfare in the global press. In fact, most people around the world didn’t even know what the Internet was.” Vinton Gray Cerf and Robert E. Kahn founded and developed the Internet. The birth of the internet opened up doors to the globe. Shortly thereafter, the social media sensation started. “The first recognizable social media site, Six Degrees, was created in 1997. It enabled users to upload a profile and make friends with other users. In 1999, the first blogging sites became popular, creating a social media sensation that’s still popular today.” Another failed social media site was “My Space” which was later replaced by Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and umpteen other sites, clawing for people’s attention. People unwittingly joined these sites, falling prey to the bells and whistles, these web portals were new social toys that helped form new social behaviors. People did not realize that the internet and social media were collectively changing human behavior. It’s a collective mind thinking of the negative persuasion that can unleash terror on humanity and the world if it is left unchecked.
Social media sites, blogs, websites, gave rise to the exchange of knowledge and ideas globally. People had no idea how to handle this new invention called the “internet.” Social chat sites, sinful past times — addiction to porn, gambling online, and the birth of the “Internet language” was rapid and uncontrolled. Bullying and hazing on the internet was rampant and unchecked. This brought in unchecked hatred, which spread its tentacles around the globe. The spread of ideas both good and bad took place through the internet.
In my view,
Worse, the spread of bad ideas overtook the good ones and raced to the finish.
The internet has since the 1990s developed rapidly in blinding light speed, faster than families, society, and the world can keep up. Here is what I have observed:
What lacked then, what is lacking now, is the absence of education about what the internet really is. The government set the “internet” monster loose upon America, without stopping to examine the social ramifications that it would bring. Families have lost their children to the internet, its violence, and its many deceptions. One of its many deceptions is the birth of social gun violence.
Parents had no idea what the internet was. It came with no online or printed manual. The government did not issue any warnings. The society did not provide any classes on how to handle the internet, warn families of what to expect, and how interacting with faceless individuals on the internet can shockingly change individual behaviors. Families were trying to cope with it on their own and learn about it themselves. True, much later, there have been a few sparse classes on the internet, social chat rooms, acceptable behaviors, watching for predators, and the like. But it was not far spread and wide. The deceptions the internet brought with it in a tidal wave, signaled the breakup of the American family. Very few families have escaped the tentacles of the internet. Children caught on early and in most cases were online, unsupervised, when parents were at work. Spouses found a way to cheat on their better halves online. Many people lost their productivity at work, spending time online. With family break up came an increased rate of divorces, spousal violence, use of guns within the family. Spouses started killing each other due to infidelity, suspicions of infidelity, and a host of other reasons. We cannot blame everything on the internet, in one blanket judgment. But the internet is the underlying, major cause, that has ruined America, American families, and the onslaught of increased social gun violence across America, majorly in houses, schools, and public places.
“Firearms were used to kill more than two-thirds of spouse and ex-spouse homicide victims between 1990 and 2005. Domestic violence assaults involving a firearm are 12 times more likely to result in death than those involving other weapons or bodily force. Abused women are five times more likely to be killed by their abuser if the abuser owns a firearm.” — Statistics on Domestic Violence & Firearms Statistics on Domestic Violence & Firearms (link below on Additional Reading) Self inflicted accidental gun wounds, accidental gun deaths of children, intentional gun suicides for a variety of social failures and umpteen reasons, form a group of statistics all on their own.
The prevailing assumption that society would cope with the internet and its social ramifications, was a grievous one to make. What the public thought of was “COOL” was far from it. Family and society were changing rapidly. Along with the internet came “family computers’’ through rival inventors Bill Gates of Microsoft and late Steve Jobs of Apple. This major global invention helped the fracture of American society and the world society happen faster. Today families in America own in excess of 4 to 6 computers per family, be they in the form of desktops, laptops (called notebooks), ipads, tablets, and smartphones. People engrossed in their smartphones have gotten into so many accidents of all kinds, including falling down manholes, falling headfirst into a water fountain, stepping off a sidewalk, and getting run over, because they are so addicted to viewing their smartphones and tablets. (check YouTube). Some are light-hearted and comical, laugh-worthy, while others are not funny at all, downright dangerous and deadly.
After the advent of the internet, the family computer, came the third wave, the onslaught of “Video games.” Seemingly benign at first, this became the most vicious cancer that attacked families in America, causing a hundred times more damage than the internet and the family computer. The internet and family computer was lesser demons than the “Video Gaming Industry.” Video games buried violence in its guise of friendliness, historical characters, and adventurous escapes. True, there are innocent video games like the “Mario Brothers” and several others, lesser-known, but kid-friendly video games that children have quickly become addicted to and play for hours on end. The violent video games encouraged children to shoot other “bad people,” “innocent bystanders,” for the thrill and fun of it, and promised rewards of getting to other levels. This innocent fun was training kids to become mind numb to real gun violence. It has taken many youngsters to the deep end, causing them to commit gun violence. It took the rest of the kids to accept that “Gun Violence” is part of the societal norm. Even today, parents have not understood the gravity of the situation. They allow their kids to play dangerous and violent video games. The developers of these video games have never been taken to task. Certain families however have put the “two and two” together to get “four” and have filed lawsuits against the Video Gaming Industry.
“The suit seeks $5bn in punitive damages from 25 entertainment companies. It was filed on behalf of the family of slain teacher Dave Sanders and other Columbine victims in federal court.” (This article is over 18 years old. Article in Additional reading — Columbine parents sue entertainment companies) This is my personal view:
Video Game Developers employed through the industry have had no social responsibility whatsoever. They are solely to blame for the degradation of society, the collective break up of the child’s psyche, and the ruin of America by bringing a fog of social numbness on the minds of children, and adults who have children’s minds — those adults who still play video games, are obsessed with them and play them hours on end.
Video gaming revenue has now reached $48.3 Billion in 2018. The “Supreme Court says video games are protected free speech, California can’t regulate sales of violent games,” which judgment has further harmed the societal framework, endangering the mental development of children, who are future citizens growing up in an environment of faux-violence. Where is our society headed and what is going to become of the nation as a whole?
Justice Antonin Scalia’s verdict likening violent video games to books and plays, another art form created for entertainment made it “a landmark day for video games: the Supreme Court has held that games qualify as protected free speech and that California’s 2005 law banning the sale of violent video games to minors without parental consent is unconstitutional. Brown vs. Entertainment Merchants Association has been winding its way up to the Supreme Court ever since California passed 2005’s Assembly Bill 1179, which regulated the sale of violent video games: the law was immediately challenged by video game companies, and both the California district court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that it was unconstitutional along the way. Today, the Supreme Court agreed 7–2 with the lower courts, and Justice Scalia’s majority opinion is thunderous in support of the proposition that video games are to be afforded the same type of First Amendment protection as any other type of media. In his words: “Like the protected books, plays, and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas — and even social messages — through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot, and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player’s interaction with the virtual world). That suffices to confer First Amendment protection.”
With this newfound judicial protection, video games and online video violence are on a full rampage, invading the privacy of our families, molding and shaping the thoughts of our children, aiding them to become desensitized to violence, changing individual behaviors to collective behaviorism, where murder and killing are accepted, unruliness, and mob destructive behaviorism, destroying social and private property are fine, sanctioned by these video games. There are no restrictions whatsoever in the virtual world. This translates to the real world. The lines between virtual and real-world have been wiped out, they no longer exist. Video games have done irreparable damage and continue to do more damage daily. With ZERO restrictions, video games and their creators are having a field day, racking up the sales, making moolah. Children of this new generation, the millennials, are facing the ultimate fall out because parents are not there. The invention of the internet took care of that, fractured and divorced families, providing zero protection or online guidance to growing children, who now spend countless hours playing violent video games, unmonitored.
Gun Control is not the answer. Guns don’t kill people. Disturbed, crazy people do. We have to find out the root cause of why people kill people using guns. The availability of guns in plenty without proper checks, delays, and the fact that guns kill people faster and quicker than knives or swords gives the killer immense evil satisfaction. It replicates the violence “as seen” on T.V, films, and video games. The brain of the video gamer is not able to decipher “human pain,” as he is now transferring his gaming experience onto the real world. Only in reality, as the gunman takes his pleasure in real carnage, it’s no longer a video game, but real blood being spilled, real people dying in pain.
Yet “gun-control advocates have been itching for an opportunity to blame law-abiding gun owners for gun crime for more than a decade. Gun control activists want to funnel federal tax dollars into even more studies until they can compile enough studies with cherry-picked “facts” to justify the eventual dissolution of the Second Amendment.”
What does the Second Amendment say?
“The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” simply translates to, It’s the constitutional right of every American to defend himself.”
Gun violence is violence formed through a carefully developed network that has unwittingly or intentionally caused deep societal fractures or mental deterioration, taking down the individual, the family, the city, the state, the country, and ultimately the world itself.
Giving up the right to bear firearms, or the dissolution of the second amendment altogether will have serious repercussions. It will set loose full-fledged evil of unmeasured proportions upon America and this world. The innocent and brave will be left defenseless against the attacks of terrorists and evil people armed with guns. Here’s my observation:
“Guns don’t kill people. Crazy people who do not have a handle on their minds, their thinking, do. Guns are lifeless objects. They cannot differentiate between good people and bad. Only people handling a gun can make that choice. The good guy can make the choice and use his gun to kill the bad guy and save the lives of many innocents. The bad guy can make his choice and use his gun to kill many innocents. In both cases, the person makes the choice on how best to use this tool called the gun.”
Question: How do people become mentally disturbed?
A psychological malfunction at the deepest level causes people to do strange things. They use a knife to cut their wrists and commit suicide. They use a knife to stab someone to take a life. They use a rope to hang themselves. They fill a bathtub to drown themselves. They eat an overdose of pills to die. They jump off tall buildings. They jump off cruise ships. They step in front of running trains. They use guns to kill themselves. They use guns to kill spouses and innocent children. They use guns to kill innocents in public. It’s the person’s mind that makes them act — harm themselves or harm others.
So why do Gun-advocates blame guns? Why don’t they trace the roots down to blame violent video games, the framework of social media, that promotes violence through irresponsible online comments, and other networks that cause the rise of social violence at such unprecedented levels? Simple. They do not want the violence to stop. Or they are oblivious to the actual roots that cause the psychological malfunction of the individual, causing this “mentally sick individual” to take lives using guns and bullets as tools.
We need to take care of ourselves, our immediate families, our brothers, and sisters in our society. Here’s how:
- Check how the internet has influenced you. Does it influence you positively? Does it make you angry? Does it make you feel depressed? Keep a journal or write an article to educate others. Find articles to educate others via social media.
- Stop watching violent horror movies altogether.
- Stop watching violent news items or delving deep into violent news content.
- Stop having a fascination for the macabre (TV shows like Criminal Minds).
- Stop playing violent video games.
- Educate your children on how violent video games can seriously affect their psyche. Then discard violent video games after breaking the CDs into many small pieces.
- Educate your children about how to handle the internet. It is never too late to start getting your family back. Use the internet to share positive, constructive ideas.
- Educate your family about social media, social behaviors acceptable on the internet.
- Education of teachers and society’s leaders — church pastors, organizational directors, needs to take place, so they can educate today’s youth on how to combat the virtual attack on our minds and the minds of children.
- Stop watching FAKE news and manufactured television programs intent on spewing hatred into our society. Do additional research to verify facts for yourself. Such programs use the soft method to insert unverified facts that target a particular group, for example, “White Supremacy” or “Anti-Semitic” rhetoric.
- Start believing in a higher power than yourself, God, who created this planet and this universe. Take nature walks to commune with God.
- Spend limited time online and on your phone. Learn to make time for your family. Learn to play board games, charades, outdoor games.
- Keep one day for yourself, focused on mental health. Detox from technology completely. Read a book, do your best to stay away from your cell phone, computers, ipads, and T.V. which will help you relax your brain and help realign your brain waves.
- Practice meditation, yoga, and deep breathing exercises. Spend more time outdoors. Walk a mile or two, at least once or twice a week.
As I was winding down thinking of a conclusion to this article, I found William Turner’s article, Trump v. Scalia on Violent Video Games. I don’t know if this is kismet, but it seems a good conclusion, where my article can end, only to begin a constructive dialogue in society to combat gun violence in our country.
In his article, Trump v. Scalia on Violent Video Games, William Turner states, “In response to the Florida school shooting, President Donald Trump promptly convened a White House summit on what to do about violent video games. He said he has been “hearing more and more people say the level of violence on video games is really shaping young people’s thoughts.” He expressed concern about some of the things his 11-year-old son is watching. He summoned industry executives, parents groups, and three Republican members of Congress, but no social scientists.”
William Turner further writes, “The meeting was doubtless a diversionary tactic, attempting to change the subject from gun control and deflect the public’s attention from the unflattering or damning headline of the day.”
To William Turner, I would boldly say, this was no diversionary tactic. President Trump has gone right down deep to the heart of the solution — VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES is one of the major causes that has shaped the gunman’s mind. This combined with hateful rhetoric on social media has caused several fractures, which is also viewed as “Alienation in society,” “Depression” in individuals, “Mental Sicknesses” societal sicknesses, demons that makes these individuals grab a gun and kill people, as a way of taking their frustration out, of not being heard. These social killings are a powerful, silent cry for help, about a society that is for the major part, sick in the head.
And William Turner writes for the UC Berkley Blog, he continues on in his article, “If the president is trying to pin the blame for mass shootings on video games, he will have to denounce the author of the Supreme Court’s only decision on the subject, the late Justice Antonin Scalia. But Trump has always touted Scalia as the very model of a Supreme Court justice and vowed to appoint justices (like Neil Gorsuch) who see the world just like Scalia.”
This is what the media does, blanket blame President Trump for making such statements. Let me explain myself, Babe Ruth is the biggest baseball star. Yet, he was “known as the King of Strikeouts. He was known for his all or nothing batting style. He led the American League in strikeouts five times, and accumulated 1,330 of them in his career.” Yet it did not diminish his baseball player status. Similarly, the late Justice Antonin Scalia was a great Supreme Court judge. It does not mean that he was perfect in every ruling. True he made some poor judgment calls. However, his poor judgment calls do not diminish his stature as one of the leading Justices of this nation.
Gun violence killing innocent people is tragic and sad. Let us get to the many tangled societal roots of this problem. This article should get us started on thinking constructively about redeeming our family, our society, and our world, for the safe future of our children. Let us find ways to curb the virtual invasion into our homes. Parents now have better knowledge of the wrecking ball effects of the web, violent movies, video games, and social media posts. We have to find healthy outlets to keep our minds healthy. It’s time society works as a collective whole to cap online efforts to wreck families and make disturbed individuals.
-The End.
