Shooting is harvest of moral decline

The murder of 17 people in Florida has elicited responses from us all.

On Feb. 16, your Times editorial headline was “Evil doesn’t kill people, people with guns do.”

Consider a more realistic headline: “People with evil intent can kill, sometimes with guns.”

If there are multiple victims or just one, murder is heinous. People make choices based on what rules their innermost being.

Spiritual darkness can cause someone to kill with a gun, knife, bat, hammer, ax, poison, chainsaw, device strapped on a suicide bomber, pair of hands choking a neck, vehicle in control of someone plowing into an unsuspecting crowd or whatever killing tool is used by someone harboring evil in the heart. Hence, the cruel harvest of moral decline.

The traditional family unit has been compromised, aberrant behavior has been glamorized and nurtured, the sports and entertainment worlds rarely produce wholesome heroes anymore, the sanctity of life has been brutalized in the womb and out of it.

Youth who have no roots in the faith that grounded America’s beginnings are directionless and searching for attention in the wrong places.

So, the battle in our culture continues until God’s light resides in our hearts.

Janet Reeve