Making of a Tragedy: The Cowards of Broward County

In the wake of all mass shootings, the predictable exhortation from the conservative corner of our national discourse is to wait before injecting politics into the discussion. It’s out of respect for the dead, it’s an instinct to not use these tragic victims as political footballs. This isn’t a competition between dueling ideologies. The Left has no such qualms about instantly leaping to their emotionally charged conclusions and maybe they have a point. Maybe it’s more disrespectful to the victims to not politicize their untimely deaths. Maybe the most respectful thing we could do is to leap directly into action.

Regardless of which side is correct, I decided to take a few days to wait before commenting on our most recent national tragedy. There’s no set length of time to wait, it’s a decent enough sentiment but it’s ambiguous and arbitrary. One way or the other, I waited, and now I’ve got some things to say.

David Hogg may or may not be a crisis actor. He is most certainly a wannabe crisis actor which would be despicable enough, but he also seems to completely lack any compunction about using the murder of his peers to advance his personal ambitions and political agenda. He’s an opportunistic scumbag and a weakling who revels in his fifteen minutes of fame. He doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously, he should go eat a Tide pod and shut up.

The Cowards of Broward County, the four armed and trained law officers on the scene who infamously refused to enter the school to confront the gunman, should do the honorable thing and kill themselves. Not only did they stand by paralyzed while children were murdered, they did a tremendous disservice to the notion that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

However, their cowardice has served a productive purpose, especially in conjunction with the failures of the FBI and others to prevent this: We now have more clear evidence that our government is incapable or unwilling to protect us. The fact is, the police aren’t legally obligated to protect anyone. Perhaps after the dust of this disaster settles more people will become aware and enraged at Supreme Court decisions to remove any requirement that law enforcement take the initiative to defend the citizenry under their watch. Cowards like those officers in Broward County, Florida will continue to justify their craven lack of action in the face of evil as long as our highest court provides cover to yellow bellies.

More than that, this epic failure of law enforcement demonstrates the logical incoherence of the gun-control crowd. They expect us to cede some degree of our right to arm ourselves for the purpose of self-defense; many of them, a growing number, demand we surrender the entire second amendment. They demand we surrender our guns to a government that can’t or won’t protect us.

In theory, the government could confiscate every gun from every gun owner and the problem of mass murder wouldn’t be solved. Two years after the Sandy Hook massacre, there was a mass stabbing attack in China that left over thirty dead and over one hundred wounded. Take away the guns and the violence will manifest itself in other ways. It’s a feeble attempt to treat the symptom of a disease while doing nothing to cure or even diagnose the root cause of the problem. It’s a bandaid on a bullet hole.

We in the United States find ourselves in a culture of moral corruption, a culture that objectifies humanity, women and men both, a culture that doesn’t emphasize the intrinsic value of human life. Violence is glorified in entertainment and so kids are desensitized to the horror of death. The same kids come from broken homes with no strong male role models. They’re over-medicated and receive little or no encouragement. These kids, boys and young men predominantly, have no purpose and no solid moral values. They see no meaning in their personal lives and none in life generally. The conclusion pathetic monsters like Nicolas Cruz have come to is that if their life has no meaning than no one’s life has any meaning.

These boys and young men are taught from a young age that innocent human life in the womb may be exterminated at will for any reason, they’re taught that it’s not really human and not really life. Life in the womb is just a cluster of inhuman cells and so the process of dehumanization that justified slavery is thrust into the consciousness of young, malleable minds. And a conclusion must be drawn from this: If innocent unborn life may be destroyed at will than it has no inherent value, it is worthless. And if innocent human life is worthless, what does that say about the rest of us? It says those of us outside the womb are less than worthless.

This combination of angry young men, a morally bankrupt culture, and a disrespect for the value of life is toxic. In such a culture we are rightly horrified by the fruits of our social degeneracy but none of us can be surprised when mass murder happens. We should be surprised it doesn’t happen more often.

Guns aren’t the problem. Mental illness may be a facet of the problem but it’s not the root cause. The root cause of this mass violence is in the hearts and minds of broken young men. Until we change those we must expect more of this violence and we must take whatever measures we can to mitigate it, such as arming teachers and drastically increasing security at our schools. These are common sense measures, unlike those proposed by so-called “progressives” who thrive on the news of mass shootings. The solution to our nation’s moral decline is far more complicated and elusive and may be forever out of reach.