The state capitol in Phoenix, Arizona was the gathering place for hundreds of armed citizens Saturday who carried off a rally in support of the Second Amendment right for citizens to bear arms. The peaceful event was in response to the anti-gun bills and proposals that are being made at the federal level and in several states. Sadly, the numbers of mass shootings that make the news have been increasing, and gun control or prohibition is loudly voiced by many politicians as the obvious answer. The rally participants expressed concern that weapons taken out of the hands of ordinary citizens will only make the criminals bolder and less controllable.
It is a terrible, senseless thing for dozens of people to be wounded or killed at the hands of someone bent on destruction as in the Sandy Hook school shooting, the Aurora, Colorado movie theater massacre and the Tucson, Arizona spree which injured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Even if only one person is wounded or dies from such an event, it is one too many.
Common elements in nearly all of these pre-meditated slaughters include involvement in violent media and mental instability on the part of the shooters. However, the rhetoric usually focuses on the guns rather than the behavioral health of the perpetrators. Those who are emotionally wounded enough to feel justified in mass murder will find other ways to prove their point and people will still die at their hands. The internet has no shortage of sites giving detailed instructions in homemade weapons freely available to any who seek them. As witnessed in the 911 attacks, thousands of people were killed with nothing more than a box cutter in hand and the audacity of a few to hijack our own planes.
As horribly tragic as the Sandy Hook killing was, the number of victims is minute in comparison to the number of children who are daily raped multiple times in sexual molestation and sex trafficking scenarios. The latter has estimates of 300,000 minors involved as victims of child prostitution who are forced to service at least 10 customers every single day. This number alone means that three million sexual assaults happen in the United States to OUR children each 24 hours; or every single minute, 2083 children have weapons of assault used against them.
The damage done to these little ones is immense—both for the child and for the tax paying citizens who support the programs designed to bring justice and healing. Yet, the media and politicians will play up the inexcusable deaths of 20 children at the hands of a lone gunman for months, with only a nod of acknowledgement toward the rampantly growing child sex trafficking and sexual abuse industries.
As soon as a Sandy Hook or Aurora or Columbine incident occurs, there is a rush to try to eliminate guns, even from the law abiding citizens. However, is there even one case in which those who control the laws and media demanded that the weapons of sexual assault be banned or even confiscated? (Public commentary on news articles will often suggest that the rapers of children should be castrated, but it never even becomes a populist discussion.) Even if the legislators could agree that it is reasonable to take away the instrument by which one causes harm to another, no one would ever agree that all males should be castrated as rape prevention. Nevertheless, politically correct thinking would have us believe that we should all hand over our guns because emotionally unstable people may use them to kill folks.
Perhaps more attention needs to be given to the factors behind gun abuse and sexual abuse. Eliminating the media violence and extreme focus on sex would be good starters. Creating a culture of healthy, nurturing families who have access to therapeutic services when life is hard might prove far more effective than taking away our constitutional rights.
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