Authored by Tom Chatham via Project Chesapeake blog,

It’s the same thing every time we have a mass shooting in America.

Before the shell casings have time to cool the same people are calling for more gun control. Their solution for mass killings is to disarm all of the law abiding citizens so everyone can feel better about themselves thinking they did something. The people calling for these new laws are the same people that fight for the right to murder a million babies a year so it is hard to take them seriously when they complain about a lot of people being killed. Perhaps if we simply relabeled these mass shootings as post-natal abortions it would be more acceptable to certain people. The problem is that taking guns away from law abiding people does not change the way potentially dangerous people feel. If they want to hurt someone, they will find a way.

When these things happen we immediately see new legislation to try to curb the ability of people to commit these types of crimes. New red flag laws are one of the things being pushed today as a cure all. The idea is to identify people who might pose a threat to society and take away their guns before they can do something. The problem is that laws such as this only apply to certain people in practice. Are police officers, government agents and certain politicians going to be relieved of their weapons if they are accused of being a threat by someone? I seriously doubt it. These types of laws are only to disarm those the government wants to disarm.

The other problem is that Congress can pass any laws that it wants to but any law that is repugnant to the Constitution is automatically null and void. They have no legal authority to enforce it and citizens have no legal obligation to obey it, and this does not even take into account the due process issues.

Guns have been available in this country since it was founded. They were even easier to get 40 or 50 years ago than they are today. The basic gun itself has not changed that much in the past half century. So why have we suddenly been inundated with mass shootings over the past 30 years?

If the weapons are no different and no more available than 50 years ago then we need to look somewhere else. We need to look at the mental state of the shooter himself. Why did he do it? When a mass shooting has occurred it just did not happen all of a sudden. In most cases it was planned for weeks or even months before the act was committed.

When a person decides to commit a crime such as this he has some deep seated reason for it. It may not be a good reason but he has a reason. When a person has reached a point where they have no concern for the lives of others, we have to question their morality. Thousands of people walk around every day in this country carrying a gun without shooting anyone. So why does one person out of these thousands decide to kill people? At some point they have been led to believe it is alright. They have been instilled with the belief that it is justified according to the way they feel.

A persons belief system determines if they are willing to harm another person and under what conditions they are willing to do so. The lower a persons ethics and morality are, the quicker they are willing to do bad things. A persons ethics and morality are learned qualities they gather from those around them and from the places they are educated. Unless a person is a born sociopath, they learn to hurt others from people who think it is alright.

If one wanted to argue the issue they could probably make the case that our learning institutions are at least partially to blame for the shootings we now have to deal with. Universities are now actively teaching kids that they should physically attack those that have a different view than they do. Conservatives are now openly attacked on campuses and in the streets across the country. Schools are actively promoting degeneracy to young impressionable children.

This is what happens when you teach kids that their feelings are more important than rational thought. Our feelings are very volatile things. They can sway from one extreme to another for many reasons. When you teach kids that it is alright to act on these feelings, they can do things without thinking about the act or the consequences.

You can take away as many guns as you want, it will not change the way some people think. If they cannot use a gun they will use a knife. If they cannot use a knife they will use a hammer. If they want to kill lots of people and don’t have a gun they will use a bomb. If they cannot get a bomb they will use a vehicle. If they cannot use a vehicle they will use an airplane. There is always something else they can use to act out on their impulses.

Until we once again teach kids the difference between right and wrong, we will continue to see acts of violence in society. The days when people respected one another and restrained their more violent feelings because they understood the consequences, are in our past. Until we regain some sense of ethics and morality in society this will not end.