Actually, America worships violence

Oh, how we hate violence. When it happens, we wring our hands, grieve for those impacted, call for new measures — gun control, no bump stocks, better background checks. Oh, it is all so sad that it is happening in America.

Well, as I see it violence is with us, and it is a part of us. We condone it … no, we worship it. We pay big dollars to see movies that are fraught with violence, death and destruction. We look up to the actors who play in these “action” movies. We see it daily on TV with death, destruction and sometimes with people being brought to “justice” with little attention paid to the real price one pays by going to prison. We see it in the riots and looting, while abhorred by most of us, which largely goes unpunished. We see it in the video games that our children play, with the support and blessing of parents.

Well, automatic weapons are illegal in this country and have been for 30 years or so. They are illegal to sell, to own, and assuredly to use. But we look the other way.

The problem is not the guns or background checks, it is our culture — permissive and worshiping of violence. This will not change overnight or with the passage of another inane bill. It will take a concerted, long effort to change our culture to remove violence from our everyday life.

Don’t hold your breath. I do not see a groundswell of effort to make this happen.

This story was originally published November 3, 2017 at 7:37 AM with the headline "Actually, America worships violence."