Letter to the editor: Gun violence & cultural change

We all stand horrified at gun violence. However afraid, we must continue to stand for freedom.

Red flag laws or gun prohibitions will not halt our problem. At best, they may slow the pace or change the weapons used; at worst, they will invite a police state or pathway for personal payback.

Detecting evildoers and preventing gun access will only turn those bent on destruction of life to another weapon. Recently, in front of a Pittsburgh police officer, two people were stabbed, one fatally. Do we take away knives?

If we identify potential evildoers, what then? Watch them? How many watchers? Reopen the sanitariums when many with mental health issues have been abandoned to the streets to save money?

I’m not proposing that we put our heads in the sand and accept our sad cultural state of affairs. I am proposing that we address the source. Find commonalities among those who choose to take these heinous actions.

What’s changed in our culture? Civility? Gone. The family, especially fathers and their role? Marginalized. Disintegrated. Personal responsibility? Passé. Our moral foundation? Cracked. Can’t we see this? Society can only slip into chaos when its moorings have come loose.

No, red flag laws and gun control cannot save us. But we can, with God’s help, begin taking responsibility for our own lives and actions, our families and children, how we behave behind the wheel, toward co-workers and with neighbors. We need to be the change we want to see.

Holly Marcheck

Unity