We begin by gnashing our teeth and tearing our clothes apart over what WE need to do as a nation and government when yet another mass shooting happens. Some of our governmental leaders immediately rush to a microphone to tell the world that this wouldn’t have happened if WE had done something, like either restrict types of guns, or accessories, or if we had confiscated all of the guns from every citizen and non-citizen in America. Yeah, that’s it. If WE had done that, these senseless killings would not be happening every few days. WE continue to be simpletons by trying to plug every hole in a dam that seems to be collapsing. What is that dam that is crumbling, you ask? It’s the dam of decency; unity around what is right and wrong, the dam built around individual and group responsibility, the dam which consistently re-enforces the idea that freedom and liberty are “perfect concepts” and it is our individual responsibility to do our parts to guard our role in a society that claims to espouse it. The problem in the aftermath is that WE want to write a group memo to society and group everyone into the shooter and his intentions to do horrific harm to fellow humans. WE write that group memo by immediately screaming that WE must do something. What can WE do? Could we love each other more? Could we listen to each other better? Could we act kinder to each other? No, when we hear WE talk, it means we need to do something like take away some freedom from somebody because THEY don’t know how to use it. THEY by the way are fellow citizens, most of whom already abide by the laws. What would WE have us do? Register all guns? Outlaw devices which allow us to shoot more people more quickly? Should we strengthen laws which already tell us that it is wrong to kill people for no reason? Don’t we already have that? Don’t most of us already do that? What is ironic in the latest Church shooting in Sutherland , Texas is that after this shooter had killed 26 and wounded 20 more with his rifle, he was shot at and possibly killed by another citizen who saw what happened . Was this citizen wrong in his shooting at the gunmen? If it turns out his bullets stopped this madman from killing at another church service elsewhere, did he do the wrong thing? You see; it’s all about intentions , isn’t it. The gunman used his liberty to fire at and into a church. He misused his liberty to make that choice. Another man used his liberty to use the same kind of device to stop him from doing more. WE, the government, wants to somehow say that they can govern those intentions by restricting the liberty of all, when really all they will do is salve their conscience for a moment. No, WE can’t do anything about those who have the intention to abuse the liberty they have been afforded here in this country. The only way that they will be “safer” will be if WE thinks that liberty and freedom are no longer “perfect” and that building a more “perfect union” by respecting those ideals should end. Until then, we remain a very imperfect, but free society…..Gary Sutton
