Something is terribly wrong with our society. Just last week in Charleston, S.C., a cowardly, soulless and hateful young man walked into a church service, sat with a Bible study class for nearly an hour and then, in a preplanned attack, calmly got up and killed almost the entire group.
Their sin: He didn’t like their race.
What followed was an outpouring of grief in Charleston and the rest of the United States. People gathered in churches and tried to cope with what had just happened.
When will all this misplaced violence stop? This young man was known to be hostile toward a race of people; he was also known to be psychotic. We have seen scenes like this repeated throughout the United States all too frequently. It has even happened in sunny Isla Vista.
Politicians were quick to pounce on this tragedy, and even as the crime scene was still being processed and families were being notified of the deaths, liberals mounted their soap boxes and blamed everyone but the killer for what happened.
First to receive their ire were conservative media outlets and commentators. Somehow they reasoned that values put forth by conservatives, like taking personal responsibility and supporting the right to bear arms, a constitutional guarantee, were somehow responsible for this tragedy.
Of course, all were demanding tougher gun control laws even though the law in South Carolina was designed to prevent just such an event. But laws like this one are for honest people.
Once again we are looking in the rearview mirror, but we are seeing a blurred image.
In this case like many others, the psychotic behavior of the individual and the irresponsible acts of his father are downplayed and shifted to the background. It appears that in the liberal mindset, it is the community as a whole that is always responsible and never the individual.
So what could have been done to head off this misguided man from his deadly deed? Could the police have checked his Internet postings to see what he was thinking and arrest him? Could they have been suspicious of the racist patches he openly wore on his clothing. Could they have prevented him from getting a gun in the first place?
The answer to all of these is no. Why? Well, first of all, in this country we have the privilege of free speech. We can demonstrate our ignorance in a variety of ways and no one can stop us. I am sure you have seen things in print, on posters, on the Internet and as “art” that seriously offended your senses and wondered, how can they get away with that?
In this case, this guy openly professed his dislike for a certain race of people. Given his free speech rights, he was free to wear this garb and talk his talk even though it was very offensive.
Then there is the gun he used. In the state of South Carolina, he was prohibited from owning a firearm, but his father somehow figured that he was mature enough to have one so he gifted one to him. Of course, this proved to be terribly wrong and his father should be held accountable.
Asking the police to prevent crimes like this before they happen is nearly impossible given the laws that govern our country. You can’t arrest someone just because they are stupid. If the police could do that, we would have to build a penal colony the size of Texas to house all of them.
Placing demented souls like this young man into an institution dedicated to caring for the mentally unstable has been deemed unacceptable largely due to complaints from liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, among others. Unless the individual commits a crime serious enough to warrant imprisonment they are allowed to roam freely in our society.
Treatment of these folks relies on the assumption that they will take their prescribed medications at the appointed time to control their demons. We know from experience in our own community that bad things happen when the patient refuses to follow the doctor’s orders.
I find it disheartening for political opportunists to jump on this event before the mourning is complete. I find it equally offensive for politicians to speak out before they even know what happened. But as some politicians say, never let a tragedy go to waste.
Personal responsibility has been eliminated from consideration from the very early stages of our lives. If you fail to pass a test in school it must be someone else’s fault; if you don’t get caught it’s not a rule; and if you kill someone it’s because a gun was manufactured.
Wake up. People who don’t or won’t follow the rules are responsible for all these heinous acts, not objects.
It’s time to push the reset button in our society and return to a time when individuals were responsible for their own bad behavior.
— Ron Fink, a Lompoc resident since 1975, is retired from the aerospace industry and has been active with Lompoc municipal government commissions and committee since 1992, including 12 years on the Lompoc Planning Commission. He is also a voting member of the Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Association. Contact him at news@noozhawk.com. The opinions expressed are his own.
