Swallowing a Camel

Matthew 23:23-24

23. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

24. Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.

The recent shooting massacre at a Newtown Connecticut elementary school has rekindled the political debate over gun control laws.  This is a natural and reasonable reaction.  It is painfully difficult to imagine 20 little children being killed indiscriminately by piercing projectiles, tearing into their fragile young bodies amid terror and screams.  The suddenness and finality of those gunshots coming, as it would seem, from out of nowhere, overwhelms our senses -- this is beyond human, out of human scale and, in thinking about it, we, like the children, scurry for some place to hide.  Right now, for us, that place to hide is behind legal bans on assault style weapons. 

The ease with which a young man can kill so many frightens us so that we seek to take the ease away from others.  But... what of the desire?  Why would a young man WANT to kill so many innocent little children?  Why would a young man want to kill perfect strangers in a movie theater or a shopping mall?  Why would any young man want to murder his fellow human beings and then murder himself?  There is something wrong here.  Something beyond human, out of human scale; there is something broken and damaged to such a degree that an individual human person is capable of committing a senseless, atrocious and horrifying act.  This is what should terrify us.  And it does.  It terrifies us so that our minds become paralyzed and we don't know what to do.  We don't understand this desire to kill little five and six year old children.  We don't understand why anyone would choose to deliberately murder over and over and over and over again and again and again and again.... and, so, we look for something easier, something that we can understand.  Guns are mechanical devices that humans have invented.  They are bought, sold, manufactured and destroyed.  If we get rid of them and the terrifying image of lethal bullets flying indiscriminately, then our apprehension will decrease, our fears will calm down, and we will believe that we have control.  Gun control.  That is how we end violence.

But, of course, it is not.  Politicians and talking heads are arguing about what guns citizens should rightfully be able to own and what guns they should not, how much ammunition is too much ammunition and what gun permits should look like; they discuss what kinds of ratings should be placed on video games and what kinds of control can legally be put on the gaming and movie industries -- and meanwhile, no one cares about the young man, somewhere in America, whose mind is so damaged, whose thinking is so broken, that all he wants to do is taste as much death as possible before he dies.  He is the loaded weapon beyond human scale.  What are we doing about him? 

Every child in America has 10 years of mandatory schooling -- the vast majority of them in public, government run schools.  We want police officers at every school, police officers armed with guns.  But, what about psychologists?  What about counselors that are actually trained as counselors that may be able to spot the sociopath before he does violence?  While we periodically check our school children for lice, scoliosis and hearing and vision deficiencies, why don't we periodically check them for psychological health?  Mental illness is a severe problem that none of the politicians or talking heads are seriously discussing.  We as a people are not moving forward in finding ways to deal with psychopaths and sociopaths and the plain old mentally ill. 

Suicide among the young is always frightening.  In the last several years, we have seen teenagers and pre-teens take their own lives after being bullied.  We say that the bullies are the problem -- and that is certainly reasonable to say and to think.  All of our national conversations and legislative acts have been aimed at controlling the actions of the bullies.  Yet, again, we see in these terribly sad stories the lure of death -- young people that want to die.  They see death as a good thing, as an answer to a problem.  What are we honestly doing about that? 

Mental illness has many forms and they all need to be handled as early as possible.  All people begin as children, children in the care of their parents -- and children in the care of public schools.  How well are we raising human beings when we ignore mental illness? Are we truly trying to help equip people to deal with the real problems of real life -- like loneliness, isolation, self-loathing, jealousy, rage etc.?  Or are we merely trying to ensure that they aren't equipped with guns?  Surely, we must make sure that we are not "blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel."