Today our nation once again is faced with a tragic event that is forcing the American people to think about where they stand on gun control and security. In the light of incidents like these, we must remember that the isolated actions of a disturbed individual do not validate the cry for further infringement upon personal liberties and rights that have been eroding away at an accelerating pace. Each time something like this happens, the knee jerk reaction is to blame someone. What strikes me as odd is how few people blame the individual who committed the violence. People tend to blame guns, which are inanimate objects lacking free will. They blame the government for having lax laws that they were blasting for being too controlling the day prior. We as a people have been blaming the tools of implementation and the lack of regulation instead of enforcing the idea of individual responsibility.
There must be a review of why the individuals who commit these acts feel so disempowered that shooting a group of innocent people seems like the only way to be heard, to validate their will. Why have these events been happening with such an increased frequency? By continuing to whittle away at individual responsibility and respect the leadership, which I want to believe means well, is stripping adult human beings of free thought, free will and responsible actions. How many people believe that they must be told how to live their lives or that they cannot be trusted to make the right choices? Most would answer that they can be trusted completely to manage their own affairs... it's those other guys that need to be watched and managed. How can that be possible? Why has it become so difficult to trust that your neighbor or that stranger on the street knows what is best for himself. By implementing social welfare programs that enable an individual to live a better life through sloth than hard work would provide instead of investing in programs that provide skills training and jobs, we as a nation are creating a generation of lost humans who don't know how to care for themselves and don't believe that they are even capable.
The path of strict government control is not a path that leads to peace or security. It can lead only to more fear and violence. The time is ripe for supporting strong social bonds with others, individual responsibility and personal trust.
