9 DECEMBER 2023 THE FESTERING WOUND

I have often spoken of the disturbing prevalence of violence in our world. The United States holds the record for school shootings. In fact, we are nearly the only country where these atrocities have occurred – and they occur on a regular basis. Since 1970, there have been more than 2,000 school shootings, which have resulted in more than 650 deaths. The frequency with which they are happening is increasing to almost faster than a cell divides. This past week, a six year old brought a gun into his 1st grade classroom and shot his teacher! Will we continue to go on with “life as usual,” pretending that this problem is going to go away?

The other night I watched a film about a six year old boy whose family had been killed during a time of war. He ran away from the adversaries, and was found and adopted by the commander of a unit of allies. They turned him into a “little soldier” by making him his own uniform, a toy wooden gun, and giving him duties to carry out. He was told, “Men do not cry.” To soften the ugliness of war, the story was interwoven with a love story between the commander, a nurse, and the little boy.

When will we stop glorifying war? More importantly, when will we stop saturating our children with violence and filling their heads with grandiose notions about superheroes? Children will emulate what they see and what they hear. Why aren’t we teaching them about love, acceptance, and empathy, rather than hatred, violence, and murder?

Creating gun “laws” is simply putting a Band-Aid over a festering wound. The only way to rid ourselves of this sickening violence is to rid ourselves of guns. I reiterate what I said in my book Question Everything: “We need to consider not only the control of weapons, but the very existence of them in a world where peace is no longer an option, but a requirement for a new age.”