Yes Mr. President We Should Be Ashamed

Short post today! 

In light of another school shooting our president said America should be ashamed because of the repeated, to quote him weekly occurrences. Now I am not privy to the intel that the president has but that seems a little excessive to me. But for once I agree with the President. America should be ashamed, but not in the way that he wants us to be ashamed. Before this is over it will be spun to be another reason why we need stricter gun control laws.

I don’t believe the problem lies with the guns! We should be ashamed because we have allowed or created a culture that doesn’t value life anymore. I am 52 and I don’t ever remember a school shooting when I was growing up. We had guns all around us; some of us even had them in our trucks or cars at schools. But we would never think to shoot someone with them unless they were the communists attacking all the way from Russia. We knew the damage guns could do because we were taught how to shoot and properly handle firearms by our dads and granddads. We also knew both of them would wear our backsides out if we even thought of brandishing a gun in anger at someone.

We valued life and we were disciplined by spankings not by telling us to go think about our bad choices. We have taught our children not to hit so they don’t fight it out anymore on the schoolyard. I am not advocating violence but I can tell you that I had my small share of scraps with other guys including my best friend once because we didn’t see eye to eye on something. But most often the fight ended there. A bruised eye or ego. Now they build up the anger until it comes spewing out in excessive violence. We need to get back to teaching that life is sacred and should never be taken without just cause. We need to help our young men learn to be men who handle their differences without shooting someone. And we don’t need to turn them into girls to make them fit into our systems either. As our old friend, Daddy Byrd, once said, “oh let him be, he’s just being a boy. Rowdy boys are happy boys!”

So yes Mr. President we should be ashamed because we have lost our moral compass as a nation. Instead of trying to pass gun laws which won’t help curb the problem, maybe you should use the “bully pulpit” to help our nation regain the moral fortitude we need to address the real problems that lead to these senseless acts of violence.