Our murderous young sons

James Eagan Holmes

Saturday before last was Gun Appreciation Day. Tens of thousands of gun owners turned out in cities across the country to rally in support of their 2^nd amendment rights. Certainly, you heard of the outbreak of gun attacks perpetrated at these gatherings. (No, we didn’t either). That’s because honest citizens with legally owned guns are not the problem.

But something is definitely going on – our young men are murdering us.

Nehemiah Griego, 15
Dylan Klebold, 17
Eric Harris, 18
Robert Hawkins, 19
Adam Lanza, 20
Tyler Peterson, 20
Jared Loughner, 22
Seung-Hui Cho, 23
James Holmes, 24

This is a partial list of deranged young men who have succumbed to their demons, murdering their fellow humans in a sociopathic rage often punctuated by suicide. In addition to their gender and age, they seem to have another thing in common – photographs reveal them as being disturbingly similar, with pin-point thousand-yard-stare eyes surrounded by stark white scelerae. What is going on here? How do we discover the ultimate cause?

Our culture has changed; that’s a certainty. Closer to the middle of the last century, guns were not vilified as today. A pickup truck with deer rifles in the rear window gun-rack was common, parked on Main Street or even in the high school parking lot. No one was terrified, no one was disturbed. Farmers strode into the Agway or hardware store with their “mouse gun” on their hip and no one called the cops. No need, for these were honest citizens who did not present a threat.

Fast forward fifty years and it’s all different. Now, monsters in human disguise mow down school children. Gang bangers and drug warriors battle with each other and innocent bystanders. The carnage in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington (centers of the strictest gun controls) is enormous. What is going on?

Here are some things that have changed over the last fifty years:

- The breakdown of the traditional family; millions of young men raised without male role models

- Government has become the defacto father of these unhappy young men; handouts stultifying their self-worth; gangs becoming their families

- Extreme gore and violence is endemic in the media, movies, and video games

- The war on drugs has fueled an enormous, lucrative market for drugs which is fiercely defended with deadly violence

- Our mental health system has changed drastically, with long-term hospitalization replaced by socialization, leaving potentially murderous patients living in the community

So when you hear someone decrying “gun violence”, you will know that they are already on the wrong track. The problem is violence, it doesn’t matter what kind. For instance, did you know that more murders are committed by striking implements (clubs, hammers, etc.) than by all kinds of rifles, “assault” or otherwise? We will make no real progress until we begin understanding, and countering, the underlying causes of violence. 

The lost souls sacrificed to our murderous young men demand nothing less.