It’s Not the Video Games Stupid, It’s the Ideology and Easy Access to Military Grade Weaponry

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Today President Trump, sounding according to Washington Post Columnist, Helen Olen like he was “like a hostage making a video.” The President, attempting to be the best consoler that he has the Reality Show in Chief tried to present some sort of empathy for the victims. He also placed the blame on violent video games, entertainment, and promising an emphasis on mental health care. Despite being on a TelePrompTer he got the name of the site of the second mass murder wrong, he called it Toledo, not Dayton.

Of course for years conservative politicians and pundits, as well as reputable physiological professionals have blamed violent video games for desensitizing their users into being able to move from virtual killing to real killing. I don’t dispute that such things occur. But I have to say that those games, readily available around the world, and those movies and television series, also readily available and popular around the world don’t seem to trigger the kinds of mostly race and religious based mass killings.

I propose that most of the people who engage in such killings have some kind of ideological belief, or personal grievance against others that motivated their attacks. A few like the teenager who shot and killed all the children at Sandy Hook had mental problems, but in his violence was ensured by a mother who got him as much weapons and familiarization as possible. He killed her too.

But most were motivated by any numbers of political ideologies, and racial and religious hatreds that go beyond violent popular entertainment. They are ideologically motivated terrorists (political, racial, religious) who have easy access to military grade weaponry and body armor. Some, like the Unibomber and Timothy McVeigh and his associates who killed almost 200 innocent people at the Murrah Federal Building were trained or self-trained in the use of explosives.

The real problem is that unlike most countries that share our Western, Jude-Christian, and Pluralistic ideals, we allow the easiest of access to the most lethal weapons and military type hardware for almost anyone. State standards vary, background checks are not always required, and the Supreme Court emasculated the original intent of the Founders regarding the Second Amendment. The only other countries that allow such access are places that we tend to label terrorist states. 

It is not enough to utter platitudes about violent entertainment, and mental health care that neither the government or private insurers wish to pay. In fact “inpatient mental health” is pretty much limited to warehousing troubled people until they are deemed not a risk to themselves or others. There are no real mental health rehabilitation programs in this country because nobody wants to pay for them. You can’t make a profit off the mentally ill, and that is what our medical system is about.

Countries with tighter gun controls and easier access to mental heath care do not have our epidemic of violence, unless they are in the middle of religious, racial, or ideological driven civil wars. It’s the ideology and the dehumanizing of others that leads to the terrorist killings we are seeing in our country today.

Take away the easy access to military grade weaponry, and pay for real mental health care treatment, even long term care. We have to stop carding more about people than profit. It is also necessary for the Congress and the Courts to revisit the case where the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority that the entire first section of the Second Amendment related to its necessity to “the maintenance of a well disciplined militia” which at the time was the basis of our new nation’s land based defense; into an individual right to own whatever weapon they need to protect them from the government.

Regardless of the ideology of the terrorists, you shut down their ability to get such weapons and gear, they have a much tougher time committing such crimes.

I’m not anti-gun. As I have written many times before I have qualified or familiarized on most individual or crew based weapons used by the United States military. That being said, there is no reason for anyone with any competence to own an AR-15 type weapon with more than the original 10 round magazine that came with the military version of the military issued M-16. No one needs more than that for self defense. Flash suppressors, silencers, bump stocks, and extended magazines serve no reason other than to kill.

Pour crisis is not a crisis made by the entertainment industry, through I don’t deny that it could be partially to blame. At its heart the true problem is political, ideological, religious. It is founded on hatred of the other and encouraged by all sorts of politicians, preachers, and pundits, including the President. The ease of obtaining such weaponry and protective gear simply makes it a greater problem.

As a nation we are dooming ourselves and our prodigy to many more of these events. That cannot all be blamed on President Trump, and it would be foolish to do that. Sadly, he is one of the least emotionally, and intellectually able men to handle such a crisis as has ever been elected to his office.

His words are empty. I wish that wasn’t so. I wish he would rise to the measure of someone like Theodore Roosevelt, and that is my prayer for him.

Think about that.

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+