EDITORIAL - The tragic surge of mass shootings across America is neither the result of presidential rhetoric nor the result of lax gun laws. The Columbine massacre occurred on Bill Clinton’s watch when the assault gun ban was in effect. Sandy Hook happened during the Obama Presidency.
No, the continuing explosion in violence in America—which includes the daily killing of innocents in large, Democrat-run cities like Chicago – is a consequence of the progressive abandonment of religious values and moral principles that are leading to societal collapse on a level not seen since the fall of the Roman Empire. These values and principles, rooted in Biblical law and Christianity for more than 2000 years, dictated a respect for the dignity of human life which has all but disintegrated throughout the Western World over the last half-century.
The embrace of a soulless secularism which can trace its origins at least to the days of the French Revolution all the way through the godless communist ideology of Marx in the mid-19th century to the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s has reaped a bloody harvest of death and destruction unparalleled in human history.
The irony of this reality is that the agents of death and destruction are the very ones who determined that God should be dethroned and Man raised in his place. That the worship of God should be replaced with the Worship of Man. And, the result of their efforts in the 20th century: Two of the worst wars in human history, costing the lives of over 80 million people. The mass exterminations of Hitler, Stalin and Mao which led to the deaths of over 100 million. Pol Pot’s annihiliation of half of Cambodia’s population. Mass murder by totalitarian regimes throughout Africa and on and on. All in the name of “progress” and creating a “new man.” A “new man” without God.
This repudiation of the value of human life by the cultural Marxists and secularists in American society is manifested by the murder of over 60 million unborn babies since Roe v. Wade in 1973 – a holocaust of shame that permanently disfigures the face of America. And, it is manifested by what we saw happen recently in Gilroy, California, Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas. For if any society can so callously and brutally destroy its most innocent and defenseless, what message does that society transmit to others about the value of human life?
Can we be surprised when a hate-filled killer in Texas guns down people at Wal-Mart when the sitting Governor of New York is given a standing ovation for signing legislation permitting abortion to the moment of birth? Or the sitting Governor of Virginia endorses abortion after birth?
The tragic truth is that these killers and mass shooters are products of a society that has lost its soul. That has renounced its God. They are products of a public school system where a handful of lawyers on the Supreme Court say it is a crime to say a prayer. Where a Bible needs to be hidden on a school bus. Where explicit and pornographic sex education courses undermine and degrade human dignity and the moral standards parents try to inculcate in their children. Where “tolerance” of everything is demanded, so why not tolerance of evil? Where young people are even confused about their own gender! A government-run public school system devoid of morality must be seen as an accomplice in the acts of violence perpetrated by its charges.
If the public school system is to be blamed, so must the media—from Hollywood movies to violent videos and music to Facebook. Day in and day out, a ridicules and denigrates traditional moral standards while idealizing the vulgar, the violent and every vice known to man. One yearns for the day of the Catholic Church’s Index and morality code for movies which forced producers to develop clean and uplifting movies lest they suffer a boycott ordered by a tough Irish priest at the altar.
Sadly, our churches too have succumbed to the cultural Marxists, infected by an empty-headed liberalism that seeks to be in vogue with the modern world by abandoning centuries-old traditions and even the very concept of sin. So, what hope do these young killers have? They are not getting it in school. Not from the mass media. Not even in their churches. And, in many cases, their home lives have been ripped apart by divorce, drugs, and despair. In a sense, they too are victims.
Victims of a society that no longer recognizes God. And, when society no longer recognizes God, why should God still recognize society and protect us from the evil that contaminates the world?
Sure, we can ban some categories of guns. Yet, the killer in Gilroy bought his gun in Nevada and brought it into California.
Sure, we can strengthen background checks, but some of these killers had no previous record of mental illness when they purchased their firearms.
Sure, we can tell the politicians to tamp down the hot rhetoric. Yet, does anyone seriously believe a few less Tweets from the President would have caused these mass murders to reconsider their heinous acts?
After each mass killing, we get the same old solutions offered by lawmakers who refuse to deal with the root causes of the crisis. It’s just too uncomfortable and politically incorrect to say that a return to religion in society might be the best antidote to what is happening. Yet, as someone once said: “Religion is the basis of morality and morality is the basis of law.” Or as Ronald Reagan once said, man has created thousands of laws over time, but has never improved upon the Ten Commandments. Maybe it’s time our leaders thought about that.
Dr. James Veltmeyer is a prominent La Jolla physician voted “Top Doctor” in San Diego County in 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2019.
