President Joe Biden came out this weekend after the tragic shooting in Allen, Texas.  He said Republicans need to stop stonewalling actions to stop this 'epidemic of violence'. Biden ordered flags flown at half-staff through Thursday in honor of the shooting victims. On balance, you could say that Republicans could come out and point back at Democrats and President Biden saying Democrats need to stop stonewalling actions that could stop this 'epidemic of violence'. If both sides could say the same thing on this issue, on just about every political issue, then why can’t rational minds come together for a real solution? Correcting this problem, and it is a problem, is complicated by different motivations which run to different solutions. It is therefore clear why they can't find a common solution. The left blames guns and it's objective is to significantly restrict and/or eliminate guns in this country. The right is motivated by protecting the right to bear arms and attacks the left's focus on guns as a political ideology not causation for the 'epidemic of violence'. The right blames the 'epidemic of violence' on a list of issues including culture and faith. The left ignores cultural influence and viciously attacks Republicans and any use of faith, like 'thoughts & prayers', to honor the families of the victims. Faithful people in any crisis come out every time with the same faith based appeal, usually something around 'thoughts and prayers'. This warm, love based, participative response garners nothing but vicious attacks from the media and the left. Apparently warmth, love, community, and shared pain are of no use to the left or the media. They passionately believe that guns are the sole source for this violence and that once we seriously restrict and/or eliminate guns this violence will end. Yet, seriously restricting guns does not eliminate all guns.  Guns can still be purchased or stolen by those who desire one.  That person would not be you and me, but criminals.  That is what happens now in Democrat run cities with seriously restrictive gun laws which have not reduced violence at all.  Matter-of-fact, gun violence increases in those cities. Many more deaths and shootings occur in those cities than anywhere else in the country. But, the left ignores this, because this fact does not service the political narrative, that guns must be restricted and/or eliminated. It is irrelevant whether it helps to solve the problem, because its services a political objective. Here is just one example of what the media ignores about gun violence. Instead, the media seeks to promote multiple political narratives of gun violence and white supremacy, even where no evidence exists. No one wants to address the primary cause, a "deeply flawed culture". The USCCB put out a statement in June, 2022 that strongly urged Congress to immediately take specific action to curb this crisis of mass shootings in America. They said, “there is something deeply wrong with a culture where these acts of violence are increasingly common. There must be dialogue followed by concrete action to bring about a broader social renewal that addresses all aspects of the crisis including”:

• mental health,
• the state of families,
• the valuation of life,
• the influence of entertainment and gaming industries,
• bullying,
• and the availability of firearms.

The order of these aspects of a solution to mass shootings is correct, with the exception of three items that were left out, the elimination of faith from our society, gang activity, and hardening of schools and public places. Faith. We’ve eliminated faith from schools. We’ve eliminated it from our government buildings. From the public square. From TV & movies. We’ve torn down crosses at memorials & parks. We've eliminated the teaching of the Ten Commandments! Faith has slowly and consistently been eliminated from our society for 3 generations. As a result, over those generations, we have a society who believes that life is worth nothing. That your life on this earth has no meaning. That if you are somehow unhappy then you need to find a group of similarly unhappy people and take your despair out on those who are happy. Faith provides answers for people with all these problems. Since we eliminated faith and the philosophical strength that comes with it from our society, we should not be surprised at where we are.  Psychologists, other counseling and/or drug therapy have all proven ineffective at garnering the hearts and minds of the public. I'm okay, you're okay and your truth vs my truth, are not the answer. The lack of purpose for life can result in no other situation. If chaos is your objective then you are on the right path ignoring this situation. 3 current articles that confirm the loss of faith and our deeply flawed culture:: -Suicide, Depression, and a ‘Crisis of Hope’: Offering Real Help to Our Youth in Despair  - The Lockdowns Are Over, but the Damage Goes On. Workforce dropouts and drug overdoses became more common as the world obsessed over the virus. -The Surprising Surge of Faith Among Young People. Young adults, theologians and church leaders say the increase is a response to the pandemic. Criticizing people of faith who want to inject prayer and shared suffering into tragedies like this is criticizing a significant  cause and solution to the problem, simultaneously. Publicly disparaging these statements of warmth, love and community further exacerbates the problem by reinforcing the lack of purpose that many feel in their lives.The irony of this screams out at everyone. A national day of prayer would be a more appropriate response from President Biden, supposedly a man of faith. Instead, he criticizes the faith that he proposes to have and replaces it with a transparent political narrative from his party’s ideology. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said in an interview, “We’ve got to find a way in this country where we can once again reunite Americans, as Americans, and come together in one big family and, in that regard, find ways to reduce violence in our country”. A much better statement, but one still lacking specific actions, like those listed above. Gang activity. In our cities gang activity is increasing.  This is due to a lack of policing, softening of criminal laws on arrests and the opening of the southern border. Former President Trump was strong in addressing this problem and since Biden took office, all that progress against gang activity has been eliminated. None of this is hard to fix, if we want to. Hardening of schools & public places. This statement explains everything you need to know about the importance of hardening schools & public places: The shooter also injured at least seven people before a police officer who happened to be at the mall on an unrelated call fatally shot him. You will find this in just about every story on this and other shootings, gun free, open for tragedy.  If the place is unprotected, the evil doers will go to those places.  More people would have died if a police officer had not accidentally rolled up on this situation in Allen.  That is ridiculous!!!! In Texas even, where everyone has a gun for defense. No police or other armed security, were assigned, no one in the mall area could defend themselves or those kids!!!! This fact about this shooting and others actually highlights a perfect case FOR guns, and 'shoots down' all attempts to take guns away from law abiding citizens!  Where we harden our most vulnerable places, lives are saved. Rep. Keith Self, a Republican congressman whose district includes Allen, told The Washington Post that debating politics wasn’t appropriate in the aftermath of the shooting. Instead of limiting gun rights, Self said, local governments need to be free to better defend public spaces from armed criminals. He called proposals to restrict gun rights, such as raising the age at which people can purchase AR-15-style weapons, “a knee-jerk reaction that does not stop criminals.” As long as the left ignores faith, gang activity, hardening of schools and public places and other actions as solutions plus has the support of the media, this problem will continue.  Some would say it will continue because the media & the left  want it too, in order to keep the issue on the front pages to build public support for their ideology. As long as the right continues to stand firm against gun control without proposing specific solutions, this problem will continue. Without the support of the legacy media, the right doesn't know how to build public support. Thus, this stonewalling standstill will continue.