So here we are, another school shooting with 17 people killed, 15 more injured this past week in Florida.
If you frequent social media as most of us do, you have come across arguments for more gun control, less gun control. You've seen arguments for arming teachers and arguments for not arming teachers. No doubt you've seen what started off as civil discourse quickly fall into petty and juvenile insults from people who have probably never, and thankfully, been involved in or witnessed extreme violence.
Yet, both sides seem to have all the answers when it comes to the issue of stamping out violence in our schools, in our communities, in our nation. There is not one single voice, argument, political party, bill, law, mandate or person who is going to eradicate this epidemic of children killing children and adults taking the lives of countless people in minutes-long, chaotic rampages. What to do, then?
Mass shootings occur at a global level and yet we are rarely exposed to these acts of violence in our media. If we are, it is only for a fleeting moment as if to indicate what happens elsewhere is simply, well, elsewhere and inconsequential to our own safety and culture. So why does the United States have the highest rates of mass shootings? Are guns really the problem, or do we look to the glorification of violence as portrayed in movies and video games?
Is it the mass amounts of psychotropic drugs being consumed by children and adults and then mixed with hate-filled rampages that cause these events to unfold? If that's true, why do other countries not have the same rate of violence as we do?
On Sunday, Feb. 18, a gunman opened fire in a church in Dagestan, Russia, killing four women. Russia, a totalitarian state, has some of the most severe gun laws in the world. Four women were still killed while they worshiped, at the hands of a 20-something gunman.
The Islamic State via their propaganda engine, Amaq, has claimed responsibility for the shooting but this claim has yet to be verified.
Making any state or country "gun free" or enacting even stricter gun laws will not quell the acts of violence committed by a lone wolf terrorist or sabotage the intricate strategies enacted by a determined, trained, radicalized group that wishes to kill and perpetuate a political, religious message. Prohibition of firearms only breeds a black market, and yes, there has been a black market for firearms for decades.
What to do, then? We need to take a closer, more intimate look at our culture as Americans. We need to dig deep and look at possible causes that drove these gunmen to commit their horrors. As parents, teachers, administrators, school districts, clergy and mentors, we need to educate our children about violence and help them understand the violence they see in films or commit via a video game is fiction.
We need to always monitor what we consume for entertainment and get back to open discourse with one another rather than blame, soap box and finger point over social media platforms. I certainly don't intend for this to be my idea of tackling these subjects, yet, I should hope we could all agree that communication and education are excellent cornerstones to begin to find the root of our nation's violence epidemic. Let's start to address this problem with more dialogue and less personal diatribe.
Michael Chamberland
The EDGE Martial Arts Academy
Lewes
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