As a kid growing up in Florence in the 1950s and ‘60s, it was not unusual to see young teens with guns heading to the woods to hunt.
I would ride my bike through the center of Florence with my .22-caliber rifle while heading up to North Farms Road to meet my friends. No one called the police as this was a common sight back then.
As I try to make sense of what’s changed (it never crossed our minds to go shoot up a school and kill innocent kids), the last thing I come up with is to blame the National Rifle Association and guns. Here are my personal observations on what I feel has led to where we’re at today.
Let’s look at television, movies, music, video games and the press.
Hollywood is great at pointing the finger at everyone but themselves. Society has been exposed to explicit violence time and again on TV and in the movies. Violence sells tickets.
Video games are tremendously violent. What effect do they have on our kids?
I love music but a lot of what our young people have grown up with glorifies violence in many forms. It must influence an already troubled mind.
The press has done an outstanding job of elevating the purveyors of violence to be known throughout the world. Let’s stop giving these individuals all the ink and air time they so desperately crave.
Finally, we have taken away places for people with mental health issues to get the help they need. We just send them out into the world with a prescription and a promise to self-medicate.
Folks, we have created this problem ourselves. What we shouldn’t do is stick our heads in the sand and place the blame on the NRA.
Let’s start by asking how the Parkland, Florida, shooter could obtain guns. There were many red flags that were ignored by the system. If current gun laws were followed this guy never should have been able to obtain a gun.
This is a multi-faceted problem and will not just go away by passing more gun laws. Society needs to come to grips with what we’re exposing our most vulnerable to through all the channels I have discussed.
John C. Rhoades
Florence