And the answer is....

Death has climbed in through our windows

and has entered our fortresses;

it has cut off the children from the streets

and the young men from the public squares (Jer.9:21)

 

Walter Williams is a professor of Economics in Fairfax, Virginia.  He is also a syndicated columnist whose columns always make profound sense to me.  Today, his column is called "Are guns the problem?"

 

Before laying out Williams' thesis, allow me to reflect on the question of protecting our schools and our children.  Frankly, I get sick thinking about metal detectors and armed guards at the door of every school in America -- not to mention the cost and the logistics of this kind of defense.  And frankly, again, I think that the insane and the evil will still find a way to wreck destruction on the innocent.  I think that arming everyone in sight  --or increasing the numbers of the police state -- is the last desperate measure of a chaotic and dissolving society.

 

Williams points out that the schools we once knew were safe, but not because of strict gun control laws.  In fact, until the 1960's, some NYC public high schools had shooting clubs where students competed in citywide contest for scholarships.  They carried their rifles to school on the subway and turned them over to their coach until it was time for target practice after school.  Then they carried the guns home again on the subway.

 

Can you imagine this scenario happening today?  A child who draws a picture of a gun or who moves his thumb as if cocking a gun is expelled without recourse today. We think that a zero-tolerance policy against water pistols will control society.  Umm--no!

 

 The difference, according to Williams, is that during the 50's and 60's, the liberals and progressives, the education establishment, the pseudo-intellectuals, and the courts all began to wage war on traditional values.  They rejected moral absolutes, and taught that morality is a matter of personal opinion and choice: The answer to sexual permissiveness is condoms, the pill, sex education, and ultimately, abortion.  The answer to violence in the schools is a beefed-up security system. 

 

Since we no longer have "a body of wisdom distilled through ages of experience, trial and error, and looking at what works" in Williams' words, we are now controlling behavior externally, rather than from within:  Many customs, traditions, and moral values have been discarded without an appreciation for the role they played in creating a civilized society, and now we're paying the price (Williams).

 

Jesus told the women of Jerusalem not to weep for him, but for themselves and for their children.  He was referring to Jeremiah 9:20, the passage that immediately precedes the one quoted above.  I cannot help but be struck by the similarities between Jeremiah's city -- the one over which he wept -- and our cities today:

 

What man is wise enough to understand this?  Who has been instructed by the Lord and can explain it?  Why has the land been ruined and laid waste like a desert that no one can cross?

The Lord said, "It is because they have forsaken my law, which I set before them; they have not obeyed me or followed my law.  Instead, they have followed the stubbornness of their hearts; they have followed the Baals, as their fathers taught them (Jer. 9:12-13).

 



We are reaping what we have sown, and we are in anguish.....