More Gun Control? Sure, But That’s Not the Fix

What about this week’s Florida shooting? Should America have more gun control? I don’t see why conservatives are so touchy about this. I’m in favor of more gun control.

Let’s face it, why does anybody need a semi automatic rifle? Have a shotgun or a rifle if you need one for home defense and carry a pistol if you must, but keep the guns small and with limited bullets before you have to re-load, and limit the number of guns a person can have, and do more background checks, get their doctor and priest or somebody sane to sign off on the permissions. Make them wait longer before they can buy a gun.

Put in all sorts of common sense measures if you want. I’m not opposed to it. I reckon they would be a good thing.

But don’t imagine it is going to stop the killing. Don’t imagine that controlling guns will control people. Don’t imagine that the heart of darkness in American society is going to be cured with such a superficial thing as gun control.

Sure it will help, but its not going to solve the problem

What nobody is talking about is that there is a crisis bubbling in the white male community. Yes, I know, not all of the shooters are white males, but most of them are, and the problem that is percolating in the white male community is the result of a perfect storm.

Have you checked the suicide statistics? Go here if you’re interested. The rate of suicides of white males between the ages of 25-65 are terrible.

Then stop to think about these shootings. Most often the gunman turns the gun on himself after killing as many people as possible.

This is not just a senseless mass shooting. This is mass suicide. Its the Jim Jones death cult in which a guy not only kills himself but takes as many others with him as possible.

If I’m right, then this problem is not solved by a few gun control laws. By all means have more gun control. Great. Go ahead and confiscate the guns if you want. I don’t mind. But don’t imagine that you will solve the problem because the problem is much, much deeper and much much more terrifying than that.

Because I reckon for every crazed gunman who follows through with his suicidal, murderous intentions there are another twenty out there thinking similar thoughts and who are in a similar dark, dark place.

Why are so many men in a suicidal-murderous state of mind? In my opinion the problem has many contributing factors: unemployment, divorce, increased mobility, no family, no kids and grandkids (often on purpose) no church, no faith, no job, no neighbors, no nothing.

In other words, Nihilism: Nothingness: No Thing: Nada: Zero: Zilch: Black Hole: Death

They live in a black hole and drag others into it.

Why the black hole? Because every argument is a theological argument. The black hole is the end point of nihilism. It does not take a philosopher to figure out that if you think there is ultimately nothing to live for then there is everything to die for, and if there is everything to die for there is nothing to stop you killing.

If there is no God everything is permissible. If there is nothing embrace the nothing.

Why is this a theological question? Because nihilism is the dark underbelly not only of modern philosophy and relativism, but it is also the dark underbelly of the sappy New Age nonsense on sale by people like Ophrah and the rest of the “Eastern thinkers”

Really. What do the Eastern religions teach? They teach that beyond the person is the great emptiness. They teach that to truly be spiritually aware you become aware that the greatest reality is that there is no reality. Nirvana is to accept with peace that there is nothing else and no one else out there.

Nirvana is Nihilism. Nihilism is your Nirvana.

This dark nothing is at the heart of godless America. It is at the heart of our glossy un-funny TV shows. It is at the heart of our snazzy cars, our zippy technology, our plush shopping malls, our online porn and our endless greedy consumerism.

I’m sorry to be the voice of one crying in the wilderness, but the stark fact of the matter is that the broken suicidal men with guns are simply showing us who we really are and what we have become.

So until we are ready to face the heart of darkness in our sick, sad and sinful society we’ll keep on seeing some men acting out the horror and bringing our shared inner hell out into the open in a hail of bullets.

What do I think can be done about it?

I think the only answer is for as many people as possible to take responsibility for their families and their churches and their communities–to build intentional communities of caring, extended families circling around a community of faith, love and support, and then gradually, eventually and hopefully–bit by bit, brick by brick a new Christendom will be built.

I’m talking about a new village, a new approach to community and faith. I’m talking about a Benedict Option.