Gene Shelburne’s thoughts on Weapon Bans Won’t End Rage

Did you hear the news report about the Connecticut mother who strangled her three children and then hanged herself? Police found her hanging in a shed.

Lawmakers want to ban guns because people get killed by them. Will they now add rope to that list of illegal threats?

Did a single week pass last year without a news report of innocent people being annihilated by some angry or crazy driver who targeted them with his car? Do we need to add automobiles to the list of deadly instruments that should be outlawed?

What about knives? I don’t know the exact count, but an alarming number of subway murders in New York and other metro areas have been knife attacks. And last summer some out-of-control dude went on what Fox News called “a stabbing spree.” He badly injured five young men, one of them fatally, when they were tubing on a Wisconsin river. Have you heard any lawmakers suggesting that we pass bills to ban knives? Or maybe box cutters, like the one the Times Square slasher used?

The problem is not the weapons. The mindless metal in the barrel of a .357 magnum or in the blade of a dagger never targeted even one victim. We won’t save lives by banning weapons of any kind. People who are mad enough or crazy enough to murder others will find some tool to do it with. Always have. Always will.

Instead of banning weapons, maybe we need to ban video games that teach kids to kill and kill and kill again before they’re three years old. Maybe we need to ban endless TV dramas full of bloody violence. Maybe we need to recreate a society where most kids have two parents they can honor, parents who model patience and gentleness and love to shape their offspring.

In every state we already have laws against deadly violence of any kind, regardless of the instrument used to kill another human. But those laws—even the ones with the stiffest penalties— do nothing to subdue the rage or hate or insanity of a person bent on killing. When Cain gets mad enough or jealous enough to murder Abel, even laws made in heaven won’t stop him.

To put a lid on the dangerous mayhem of this generation, we don’t need more laws. What we need is more people filled with God’s Spirit and his fruit of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Against those traits, the Bible says, “there is no law.”

Gene Shelburne may be addressed at 3516 Carlton Dr., Amarillo, TX 79109.