Politicians everywhere are scrambling to find a solution to gun violence.  Gun violence can’t be packaged into one solution.  Before you say this doesn’t concern me, think again.

In the last week or so they have taken alive shooters or would be shooters.  A couple repeated the hate race violent mantra but a couple have given us new insight into just where their heads are at.  What is so disturbing is it does not concern racial hatred or any other category of complaint.

Two, twenty somethings in different parts of America basically said this.

“I was looking to set a world record for the most number of kills in the shortest amount of time.”  If this doesn’t concern you it should.  It means we are all targets of people wanting to set a dubious world record for killing people anytime anywhere.

Increasingly we are facing a less polarized world and embracing a fragmented world.  It reminds me of the title of the old song, ‘Blinded by the Light’.

We are not engaging in discussion we as a society are blinded by the light of our own reality.  There is no tolerance for the thought someone else has an acceptable view.

It can be politics, religion, racial hatred, even sports.  We hear people shooting up night clubs because they were thrown out for bad behavior.  We have people killed because Satan was whispering in the shooters ear.  There are those who hate based on race.  Religion is another factor, but worse now is killing could become one size fits all.  There is a term for this by the way.  A Moral killing.

Some say that is in America and they are nuts.  Well a couple of weeks ago we had two mass killings in twenty-four hours.

Yes terrible.

Here is the kicker, while we all watched that in horror there were at least eleven shot and wounded in Toronto.  A friend told me that was gang violence.  It was, and people were lucky.  Shots were being fired.  Anyone can be a victim even ordinary people coming out of a cafe, a church or a liquor store.

We are all coming from different corners when it comes to the solution.  Keep guns away from those with mental issues, or the criminal element or those who play video games and the list goes on.

Well I’m afraid to say it goes deeper than that.  We have to examine our society.  We have to be an example to the young.  If we bad mouth them how do we get them to listen?  We are paying for a lack of parenting over the years and then blaming the kids in many cases.  The problem we are having is not with kids it is with adults.

So where to begin?  Conclude Liberal minded people are not bad, Conservative minded people are not bad, someones religion different from yours does not make them scary.   We have to stop pointing fingers at each other and stop looking for scapegoats.  These are all part of the shadows of ignorance and negativity that eats away at the foundation of society.  Frankly we are better than that.  When we start curing the ills of our society we will reduce the number of people who are at risk.  No we will not totally eliminate violence, but at least we can make it a rare occurrence instead of what it is now.

Fred Steele