I have to hope that the guy who told Tom Mauser to "get a life" simply didn't know to whom he was speaking. Tom Mauser's son, Daniel, was among the dozen students killed at Columbine in 1999, and as Mauser was attempting to enter--as a protestor--the NRA convention in Pittsburgh, where Vice President Cheney was about to give a speech, he was turned away by a security guard, and that's when a conventioneer hollered at him to "get a life."
Tom Mauser already has a life, a painful one, and he understands more about personal suffering than most of us ever will. Mauser, at the very least, deserves our sympathy and prayers, and his tireless attempts to ensure that his son did not die in vain merit appreciation. Sadly, though, Mr. Mauser has chosen to spend his time attacking symptoms rather than causes. He's after firearms, rather than the criminals who misuse them--and, more appropriately, the government that encourages lawlessness by disarming the law-abiding and turning our public schools into a moral wasteland.
From a practical standpoint, would Harris and Klebold have dared to go criminally armed, much less open fire, in a school protected by armed and trained staff? More important, would it have made a difference if the Columbine curriculum had included the fact that, far from having evolved from pond scum, Harris and Klebold had been created in the image of a loving God who had a purpose for their lives?
Mr. Mauser asks, "What is the useful purpose to these weapons? ...They are the weapons of gangs, drug lords and sick people. It is a weapon of war and we don't want this war on our streets." Mr. Mauser, of all people, should be painfully aware of the fact that this war is already on our streets, and going after guns isn't going to help us win it. Firearms are certainly useful for keeping the peace; even gun-control zealots want the police and military to retain their weapons. The gun control argument is not about guns, after all, but about who should control them...and, thus, hold the reins of power. But this issue goes much deeper than mere earthly power.
Our children have watched us murder literally millions of unborn children in the pursuit of personal convenience, and they have listened as we have taught them the religion of Darwin and "the survival of the fittest." Little wonder that some of them see nothing wrong with killing anyone who gets in the way of their comfort (it's not "murder," of course, since that term has moral implications). We have created an army of monsters, and at this point, the only way to keep our schools safe is to employ the tactic of deterrence. We need armed staff in every public school, metal detectors at the doors, random searches of lockers and backpacks. We have stolen their ability to be governed by internal conscience, so we must now govern them by external force.
Eventually, though, the public schools will crumble in on themselves, and perhaps by then the American public--many of whom, God willing, will have received a superior education through private or home schooling, and will thus be of sound mind--will be ready to restore the Biblical foundations of our nation into the fabric of our national curriculums. Those who fear God need fear nothing else, even bullets, but those who do not fear God must ultimately fear everything else.
I hope Tom Mauser would agree.
Posted by jon at April 18, 2004 02:27 PM