October 4, 2006
The third school shooting in a week – this one in an Amish community school in Pennsylvania, has left five girls dead and six others critically injured. 32-year-old Carl Roberts IV shot himself after killing the girls. He apparently harbored some long-time grievance that involved females.
The usual search for meaning and calls for more gun control followed. But the meaning is this: evil is real. It inhabits our hearts and causes – in the most extreme cases – people like this to give it to the most horrendous temptations.
Life is cheap in our day. There is little which teaches self-control and so more gun control won’t work. Washington, D.C. has some of the toughest gun control laws in the country, but criminals violate them everyday and kill the innocent and each other.
This is a cultural problem. Crime is rampant on TV. Murders are glorified and while most of the killers are brought to justice, those with sick minds glory in the gore. What we promote we get more of. What we denigrate we get less of. Pray for those families in Pennsylvania whose daughters were killed or wounded.
Cal Thomas is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.
