Dear Editor and Readers:
There are no simple and easy answers when dealing with evil. We want to enact a solution to prevent murder from ever happening again. But it will happen again. It has been with us since the beginning of time (Genesis 4:8) and will continue through the end times, Pure evil exists and its manifestation is heightened in the politically correct culture we have been nourishing for far too many years.
Jumping on the anti-gun and NRA bandwagon will prevent nothing. Perhaps it might give one a good feeling that “something has been done,” but we need well-thought out solutions to a deep-rooted problem of alienation and mental illness in our society. Internet use hasn’t helped to develop healthy egos either, as face to face discourse has suffered. We have become so frightened of “labeling” people with its legal ramifications that we have ignored their problems. We wait until a heinous act has been committed before dealing with it, and the call to disarm America bit by bit once again pushes to the forefront.
Distraught citizens in the emotion of the moment call for boycotting the NRA and businesses supporting it. This organization’s blame for causing this last catastrophe is like blaming the Ford Motor Company for a driver gunning it through a red light only to smash into an oncoming vehicle, killing all of its occupants.
Like those at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, I have been shot at and witnessed injured and dead students falling in pools of blood around me. The horror never leaves you.
There are many creative as well as conventional solutions, from sheriff’s substations on campus and allowing resource officers to do their jobs to dealing with the effects of antidepressants on the brain and reopening mental hospitals.
With our PC mentality too many are afraid to let authorities know of their concerns due to repercussions. And, as we have seen in Parkland, even when authorities have been notified at all levels multiple times, pleas for help were ignored. Anyone derelict in their line of duty should be held accountable. Period. But let’s rise above the blame game. Cherished lives were lost. The next murderer is out there, waiting to strike. Evil is amongst us.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Margie Yurtinus