From Where I Sit:
It would be foolish to overreact

As you read this, I am sure you are by now aware of the deadly shooting attacks that happened at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado last Tuesday. The people that died in this tragedy: Teacher and coach William ‘Dave’ Sanders, age 47, and students Cassie Bernall; Corey DePooter, 17; Steven Curnow; Matthew Kechter, 16; Kelly Fleming, 16; Daniel Rohrbough; Daniel Mauser, 15; Isaiah Shoels, 18; Rachel Scott, 17; John Tomlin, 16; Lauren Townsend, 18; and Kyle Velasquez.

The killers, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, also died – apparently of self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

As I reflect on this tragedy, I am thankful that this horror is not a true representation of modern-day America. There are millions upon millions more high school kids on sports teams, chess clubs, going to school, laughing, dancing, crying, studying, dating, chewing gum, and taking tests. Many will go on to college, get a job, maybe get married, grow a family, and become productive, taxpaying citizens.

Most high-schoolers are good, decent kids, or are brought up to be that way. We have to remember that. You and I must turn our moist eyes from the casket holding the young body being lowered into the ground to the hope of the future that is still alive and real.

Hope that shines through the heroism of teachers saving students lives and students saving teachers lives. Real hope from God of the spiritual promise of eternal life after earthly death. Strengthening hope from the wonderfully inexplicable human response of comfort and love of one person to another, one stranger reaching out to another, building a fabric of love that is incredibly powerful and strong. Renewing hope- perpetuated not by returning to the past, but accepting it, celebrating the good, and remembering that we can, again, smile and laugh. That hope burns bright as the time inevitably rolls on, overflowing with the possibilities of the future.

Unfortunately, in the wake of this tragedy some political opportunists are using the prevailing feelings of confusion and deep hurt to further their own political agendas. Those people are selfishly seizing this time of grief and introspection knowing they have a captive audience to hawkishly peddle their ill-founded legislative ideas to. Ignoring the fact that every gun used in the massacre was already declared illegal, these folks would rather put a Band-Aid on symptoms of societal breakdown rather than even search for a cure. While they pour more gun control laws onto the books, places like Washington, D.C., which has more anti-gun regulations than any state in the Union, sees it’s violent crime rate rise to the highest in the nation.

This is partly due to the flawed assumption that fewer legally owned guns in the hands of law-abiding people will mean less gun-related violence; an assertion not borne out by fact. As a friend of mine says, “Crack don’t smoke itself.” Guns don’t randomly fire themselves. Why are the guns being fired? Is there a larger social dilemma occurring, that this is only a part of?

Do some people really think our nation’s culture can celebrate moral relativism and still expect people to have strong moral principles?

What’s more important – the motto ‘If it feels good, it must be good’ or ‘Do the right thing’? – It is foolish to ignore the millions of lives that are saved from death every year with firearms – and to overreact out of emotion and desperation by adopting more gun-control measures is half-witted at best, and tragically irresponsible at worst. Thinking we are doing something about one problem, by promoting meaningless feel-good solutions will only keep us blissfully ignorant until the next rip appears in our cultural cloth.