Gun Control Won’t Stop School Shootings, But Addressing a Long-Ignored Malady with Young Men Will

Let’s talk about an obvious problem and then let’s talk about some solutions that, unfortunately, are still not a part of our ongoing national dialogue. 

After another mass school shooting, this time in Uvalde, Texas, our great national conversation once again revolves around gun control — and more of it. These conversations seldom ever factor into account whether these gun control laws would prevent another school shooting. Nope. That’s beside the point. 

When challenged, the people who push these gun control laws care less about what they would ultimately do as much as they care about virtue signaling to the world that they attempted to do something…anything. Once again, good intentions trump actual results. Gun control won’t reduce the number of school shootings. Anyone who wants a gun can acquire one, legally or not, the same way anyone who wants illegal narcotics can acquire them. 

But rather than put a tiny and useless Band-Aid on America’s large gaping wound, how about we take a scalpel and, once and for all, address the root cause of so many of these school shootings?  

Time after time, we find out these school shooters — almost always young men — were bulled, had dysfunctional home lives, and had almost zero religious upbringing. No one taught them how to cope with life’s many difficulties. Due to a lack of religious instruction, life seems bleak, and these young men have no faith their lives can ever improve. Modern society has taught them to feel comfortable labeling themselves as victims.

Modern technology and the most current social media platforms, especially Tik-Tok, instill a sense of narcissism among their young demographic. If you don’t believe me then visit Tik-Tok and learn for yourself. The young people there can’t see beyond themselves or their petty personal problems. Many of them crave fame and attention. 

On the eve of their 1999 mass killing, the two Columbine killers recorded a videotape and said they wanted either Steven Spielberg or Quentin Tarantino to direct the inevitable biopic about their lives (which, to Hollywood’s credit, never came). Another mass shooter, Elliot Rodger, had wealth and good looks but lacked confidence with women. He used YouTube as a platform to hate any woman who declined his creepy advances. When Rodger’s lack of coping skills in life overpowered him, the self-described “Supreme Gentlemen” murdered several random women in California in only one night. 

You want to know what you have to do to reduce the number of school shootings or even mass shootings in this country? You have to repair society’s damaged and broken young men.

To sum it all up, men have lost the intestinal fortitude, the coping skills, and the sense of selflessness that they used as fuel to settle the American frontier. To defeat the Nazis. To bestow the world with freedom, the benefits of rugged individualism, and, in the past century alone, remarkable advances in medicine and other technologies.

Young men need to know that adversity builds character.

Young men need to know that life can and will improve for them if only they stop perceiving themselves as victims.

Young men need to know how to apply themselves in life and then actually do it.

Young men need to know that success in life is the best revenge against those who mistreat them.

Young men need to understand the many virtues of selflessness and then to understand and appreciate the value of human life. 

Young men need to know that faith in God can propel them to heights they never imagined. The now feminized modern church has not done the greatest of jobs addressing young men’s emotional needs.

Fathers have not done the greatest of jobs teaching their sons about the art of assertiveness.  

Society has not done the greatest job reaching out to lost and wayward young men who believe they have no hope in life. 

As the fictional Rocky Balboa once explained to his son, “Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done!”