Evil Won’t End Simply with Legislation
America needs gun reform desperately.
America needs to keep a watchful eye on suspected terrorists and prohibit them from purchasing guns and boarding airplanes.
But, the gun control debate needs one missing element that cannot be legislated and that is a return to the morals that America has seemed to abandon over the last decade.
According to the Washington Post, “The percentage of adults who describe themselves as Christians dropped by nearly eight percentage points in just seven years to 71 percent, according to a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center.
“At the same time, the share of those who are not affiliated with a religion has jumped from 16 percent to about 23 percent in the same time period. The trend follows a pattern found earlier in the American Religious Identification Survey, which found that in 1990, 86 percent of American adults identified as Christians, compared with 76 percent in 2008.”
Now, there is probably no survey that can correlate loss of religion with increased mass shootings. But, changing the heart of people will go a lot further than just changing the law.
Without any data to back up this assumption, it seems from the eye test that as America lost faith in faith, it lost a sense of peace and protection from gun violence.
The gun control debate should definitely still focus on closing the loophole for guns purchased online and at gun shows.
It should also include keeping people on the terrorist watch list from purchasing weapons.
Most assuredly, the gun control debate should include legislation that bans the purchase of assault weapons.
Think about it, who actually needs such high-powered weapons to protect themselves and their loved ones?
Assault weapons are weapons of war and intended for mass casualties.
Only if 50 to 100 people broke into someone’s house at the same time, will one be justified in needing that type of weaponry.
Furthermore, those who advocate for club patrons to be allowed to have guns inside a nightclub must have never been to a club before.
Alcohol consumption increases the likelihood of violence, and fistfights will turn into gunfights, and OK club scenes will turn into the O.K. Corral.
More importantly, the Nation Rifle Association (NRA) and their puppets in politics should care more about lives and less about money and power.
Politicians are supposed to represent all of the people, and not just the people and organizations with the deepest pockets.
There is absolutely no reason that organizations like the NRA should be writing legislation that applies to the gun control debate or any other debate in America.
But there is also no reason that Americans should think that they could abandon religion and not abandon the good things that religion represents.
Religion often gives people their moral compass, not legislation.
Religion tells people what is good and evil.
Religion tells people what is right and wrong.
So while gun reform is definitely a huge necessity, faith reform is needed even more so because with it comes a restoration of good and a reduction of evil.
