for the record (re: guns thread)

Societal introspection? Its not the counter-culture. Its the culture! But they all get so bored when I put on Jesus movies portrayed by some white English Actor! They would rather watch Scarface! (which, unbelievably, the State of Colorado allows to be shown in the detention center! ) Do we go with legislation of morality? Or do we attempt to influence each other on a grassroots level and leave the government out of it?

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Convictions are very different from intentions. Convictions are something God gives us that we have to do. Intentions are things that we ought to do, but we never follow through with them.
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“The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.”
--General Omar Bradley

After Columbine High School happened in Littleton, Colorado---not fifteen miles from where I live--one of my mentors who had initially gotten me to go to the youth detention centers with him (which I now do on my own and have done for 12 years) quit. He simply gave up.
Of course, he was experiencing problems in his marriage and couldn't devote his time to interacting with locked up urban teenagers.I have the time. My critics may say that they could do it better than I. My response? Well go do it, then! The key to helping society reduce gun violence is to be someone who has a chance to talk to a Dylan Klebold, an Eric Harris, or a Jason Cho before they get desperate enough to pull the trigger.If you have kids, get to know their friends. Rather than shunning the worst ones, show them some love and understanding. Empathize with them.Its like Jar says: Its ok to fail. But its not ok not to try. If after our best efforts, the neighborhood kid shoots up the school, we at least can say that we did our best to try and prevent him from doing so.Legislating access to guns may be a short term solution, but there are issues regarding personal freedoms.Throwing away all the violent video games may work with your own kids, but we as a society can't get very far through censorship.Societal values will only change collectively. The direction we go is up to the voters.

So are you saying that your real gripe is political? The issue is legislation. The problem with legislation is that it effects everyone. Its like a Cancer drug. The drug kills off the cancer cells and also kills many of the healthy cells. Do we really want to give society a shot of chemotherapy that hurts all of our freedoms in order to attempt to limit a few bad apples? One more point that Sowell makes: My point, aside from jumping into an argument that I am no expert on, is to ask why the focus needs to be on the guns and not on the mental condition of people who abuse them?Edited by Phat, : visual appearance