As a young girl, it was a long walk with my yellow No. 2 pencils, complete with extra pop-on erasers, a glue-bound notebook, and a brown paper bag lunch that housed a hot dog with coleslaw wrapped in waxed paper. Although the hot dog bun was soggy by lunchtime, it was still tasty. Wearing one of only two new outfits, it was the first day of school, sixty-five years ago.

Today, Chromebooks have replaced yellow pencils and learning cursive. In-house food chains like McDonald’s and Chipotle are now serving as cafeteria options in some schools, replacing the traditional 32-cent hot lunches. The ring of the bell brought the pledge of allegiance and perhaps prayer. Under our current administration, students may or may not pray, but one thing is sure: all students will know the protocol for lockdown. Among the myriad things students and teaching professionals must prepare for to have a successful year, sadly, one of them is how to stay safe if the school is under attack.

Bleeding – Mass Shootings

We have evolved…in the wrong direction. When we kiss and wave “Goodbye” to our family, we never mean for it to be the last. Morbid subject, I know. Why am I talking about this? Because it is real and it continues to happen.

At my church a couple of Sundays ago, every child, young adult, and teaching professional lined up at the altar to pray for a good school year academically and for their safety. Additionally, on the first day of school, the men of the church lined the halls of a local school, praying silently for students and staff as they walked through the school corridors to their classes.

In the US from 1982 to 2024, 1,174 people lost their lives, with another 1,651 injured due to mass shootings.[i] That is 2,825 people too many. For the twenty-three-year period, forty states reported this statistic, with the lowest having one incident and the highest having twenty-six incidents.

Speculated Cause and Effect

A Columbia Medical Center article reports personal retribution against a person, group, or institution as a recurring cause. Mental illness can initiate this explosive behavior; however, studies have shown that about 70% of perpetrators have some mental health issues, while only 25% show evidence of severe mental illness at the time of the shooting.[ii]  Substance abuse and social isolation contribute to violent behavior as well. Isolation combined with music, movies, and games that glamorize violence negatively impacts sensitivity toward the well-being of others.

Scott Bonn of Psychology Today agrees that most perpetrators showed no signs of mental illness at the time of the crime. He purports that the real cause lies in our “society and culture”. He reports US core values as “fierce individualism” and the ethic that “might makes right,” meaning disputes are settled with force. Bonn states there are powerful, divisive, and damaging social forces at work that fuel mass public shootings. Much of the violence experienced is spawned from hate groups, political and social divisions, separate and unequal mind constructs, and so on. Bonn’s personal perspective is that “mass shootings are symptomatic of a sick society.” [iii]

Sick Society – Bleeding Out

From Bonn’s perspective of a “sick society,” I can say that, despite our evolutionary transformations in the arts, sciences, and technology, we have retained the most primitive aptitude for survival. Herbert Spencer, a 19th-century theorist of evolutionary philosophy, was a champion of Social Darwinism, which posits that “nature” will eliminate the weaker races through the natural selection of the fittest. Nature will evolve into a perfect society, where the weaker succumb to their limitations while the stronger prevail in various strata of society, rendering them superior. Therefore, Spencer and others who adopted this philosophy did not support any social initiatives that sustained the weaker sects of society.

Social Darwinism does not support the Christian ethic of loving your neighbor and meeting the needs of the destitute. As a political philosophy, it opposed all laws that specifically targeted “a leg up” for the marginalized, be it through education, housing, health management, or physical and mental support.[iv] The prevailing concept is that the marginalized will eventually annihilate themselves as ones trying to survive in a Dystopian society where the most coveted and needed resources have been removed.

How would this self-annihilation come about?

• Persons whose psychological needs have not been adequately addressed are free to roam, plot, and execute. A modicum of acknowledgement and treatment of the condition is provided after a crime is committed, most likely against the perceived weaker sect of society, for example, school shootings
• Hate groups actively recruit and are protected as an arm of “nature” to target those seen as inferior.
• Systematic discrimination coerces the marginalized to survive by any means necessary, which may include nefarious means.
• Moral degradation as a whole is packaged and dispersed in media, arousing and virtually feeding the “hunter – prey” appetite until the depraved act on it. For example, movies often portray killers who inspire copycats. By the age of 18, it is estimated that children have witnessed approximately 40,000 murders on television.[v]

These are a few examples of society turning on itself. So, the problem is larger than simply addressing mass shootings. Mass shootings are one symptom of a culture that is “sick” to some and a “Darwinian metric” to others. Theories like Social Darwinism are cloaked, nurtured, and sustained under the guise of current nomenclature. Taking this one step further, consider the early 20th-century concept of Manifest Destiny.

Manifest Destiny was a theory of John Fiske’s that proffered that the U.S. and England were “chosen” people who were bred “to make the world in their own image” through commerce, democracy, industrialization, and Christianization.[vi] The “nature” that Spencer is referring to is people who feel they were created superior in intelligence and physical composition. This concept of a superior people had ethical ramifications as Hitler embraced a similar, if not the same, ideology with respect to the German race. The world opposed that concept and responded with a world war.

Prescriptive Reflection

Considering history and the US’s most recent colonial appetite for power grabs of countries to its north, it would be time well spent if those in power would reflect on history. Every imperial empire that came to power fell by another, every single one. And every single ruler who felt themselves gods fell hardest. Although this can be considered a frightening time by those subject to the fallout of the imaginations and reckless ambitions of men, I know, for every chapter, there is a period. There will come a time when the people will not suffer the sins of the mighty, but the mighty will suffer the judgment of their own creation.

The blood still runs through our schools, shopping malls, churches, and streets, threatening the lives of those who are no threat. Bloodletting as such is not a problem in other countries as it is in the U.S., or even in affluent neighborhoods of the U.S. Whatever ideology has made us so lofty in our thoughts to think we are untouchable, for the sake of every people that make up our country, America needs to find her knees, not to raise them as she climbs on her throne, but to bend them in needful repentance.

Conclusion

On a more joyful note…despite what is going on around us, there is hope in Jesus Christ. He offers peace that warms like a blanket, that bridges over troubled waters and eases a weary mind. I cannot imagine doing this life journey without Him. Take a moment, ask the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ,  to give you this peace. He will.

Epilogue:

Just as I prepare to post this blog, this morning brought breaking news[vii] of a shooting in Minneapolis, where two children were killed, and 14 others were wounded during a mass shooting on the first day of school.

Crime scene tape remains draped across the churches and schools of this country because America still bleeds.

 

References

Featured image: Statue of Liberty Crying Blood from redbubble.com

[i] Mass shootings in the US by state 1982-2024| Statista

[ii] Understanding Gun Violence and Mass Shootings | Columbia University Irving Medical Center

Columbia University Irving Medical Center  Understanding Gun Violence and Mas Shootings, August 7, 2019

[iii] Scott A. Bonn, Ph.D. “The real Reason Mass Shootings Are on the Rise. June 20, 2022  The Real Reason Mass Shootings Are on the Rise | Psychology Today

[iv] Dorrien, Gary J., Social Ethics in the Making: Interpreting an American Tradition, 1st pbk. Ed (Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011). 71.

[v] By the time your child is 18, he’ll have witnessed 40,000 murders – on your TV

[vi] Dorrien, Gary J., Social Ethics in the Making: Interpreting an American Tradition, 1st pbk. Ed (Chichester, U.K.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. 73-4.

[vii] Live updates: 2 children killed while praying in their pews at Annunciation Catholic School; ‘Incomprehensible cowardice’