Distracted from the Truth

I was glad to hear our local sheriff say last week that the people carrying guns in school should be people with badges--not teachers.  Some counties in Florida have been encouraging training and arming teachers, but it just makes no sense to me.  There that could too easily go sideways.  And besides, teachers today have enough on their plates, enough worries, concerns and responsibilities without adding all those that would come with being charged with responding to gun violence with a weapon.

I thought about this after hearing about the latest mass shooting in Virginia Beach.  Not that it had anything to do with schools. In fact, it feels even more random in some ways than some of the other mass shootings.  Perhaps a motive will be discovered.  Perhaps mental illness will be revealed in the investigations, but for the moment it seems like some guy simply decided to shoot up his co-workers for no particular reason with no particular warning.  But what seems to have happened is the conversation has quickly gotten sidetracked to a discussion about silencers and ammunition magazines.  Just like the school shootings quickly get moved to discussing things like arming teachers and "hardening" schools.

Don't get me wrong, we need to discuss all of these matters,  But in a comprehensive manner.  Why do we allow ourselves to be distracted from telling the truth?  Why do we keep shying away from the real issues?  Like the simple fact that there are too many readily available guns in this country?  Like the simple fact that we live in a culture permeated with violence?  Like the simple fact that we do a lousy job of taking care of people's mental health issues?

As long as we avoid the larger issues, as long as we get sidetracked by a piecemeal approach, we will more than likely continue to experience these horrific events which, as I said to my congregation yesterday, have gotten so commonplace that we are not even shocked by them anymore.  And that, in some ways, is almost as tragic as the incidents themselves.