Cynthia Davis: Forget guns and mental health, you can blame school shootings on the schools

(From former Rep. Cynthia Davis, R-O'Fallon)

There's been plenty of analysis of the school shooting in Florida last week. Some of it is helpful, but much of the mainstream commentary is slanted. Big government proponents seek to use this tragedy to advance a political agenda to grow governmental bureaucracies, justify more National intrusion, reduce personal responsibility and erode our second amendment.

The worst ideas focus on treating the symptoms, not the real problems. To find the right answers, we must look at the root cause. Some people blame guns, psychotropic drugs, adoption issues, Asperger's Syndrome, and lack of school-provided law enforcement.

However, I have not heard anyone talk about what schools teach students. My daughter was required to read "The Most Dangerous Game" about someone who hunted other human beings. The year before she was required to read, "The Hunter and the Hunted", which was just as bad.

To promote evil in the classroom is, at a minimum, a dereliction of duty, if not educational abuse. Our schools are hired by the public for the public good. When they no longer teach goodness or when they undermine goodness, the only recourse we have is to remove our public support.

These children, in their formative years, are forced to read stories of evil, horror, and violence, which is especially inappropriate at a time when their tender consciences are developing. The blatant disrespect of human life or the glamorization of heinous or shameful behavior plants seeds of pathological behavior and creates emotional scars that may never heal.

On top of that, much of the required reading for English classes contains foul language. This should never be acceptable in the classroom. If teachers don't allow their students to use expletives, why are these children forced to put these words into their minds?

Every experience forms a conscience for either good or evil. We must recognize what we're doing when we teach any curriculum that indelibly damages the conscience. So many schools are trying to not talk about anything religious, yet moral standards are religious because they all originate from one's worldview. When will the schools take responsibility for their part in debasing the character of the students by mainstreaming evil?

We should never accept this as normal! There is only a finite amount of time in each class. Every time a teacher assigns an immoral book, it removes time that could be spent on true classics.

Schools used to teach virtues like courage, honesty, brotherly love and the dignity of our humanity. This is what we get when we teach children we evolved from pond scum. What happened to all the good literature that used to teach children useful lessons that would make them a success in life instead of this mental pollution forced upon them as a requirement for graduation? Many of these books actually teach racism and enlarge the cultural divide.

Some examples of what used to be taught are Robinson Caruso, Little Women, Moby Dick, Frankenstein, Ben Hur, McGuffey's Readers, Horatio Alger's novels, C. S. Lewis, John Milton and stores that nurture the soul, spur hope, inspire greatness, unity, compassion, love for our fellow-man and an acute awareness of right vs. wrong.

These books inspired generations of young people to understand what good character looks like and encouraged them to aspire to make their lives count and to make the world a better place. We must use every opportunity to promote a more free and virtuous society.

The same day as the school shooting in Florida, my daughter's high school experienced a power outage. My daughter's first thought was wondering if it might be a mass shooter. How sad that our kids have to concern themselves with this!

Here are a few comments from some of my smarter friends:

"The issues we’re dealing with are not ailments of mental health, but of spiritual health. It isn’t the presence of a gun in the hand, but the absence of God in the heart that we see such carnage." ~ Tamara

"A friend pointed this out to me, but to all my friends on the political right who are jumping on the "mentally ill people shouldn't own guns"bandwagon, ask yourself how you're going to work with the political left on this when they don't really know what mental illness is? Remember they believe there are 63 genders of the human race." ~ P.W.

"We protect stores, banks, courthouses, sporting events, POLITICIANS, (including former Presidents) with, guess what? guns. The list goes on and on and on... But somehow we can’t seem to protect our future's greatest asset, our children, the next generation, with guns? It’s truly maddening. It’s time to start protecting ALL of our schools with guns. Allow ALL teachers and staff who want to carry, to carry." ~ Eric

"The shooting in Florida is NOT a national problem. It is NOT a federal government issue. It happened in Florida. It is a community issue first...a local issue first. Washington needs to stay out of these issues. Local, county and state solutions should be preferred every time.
Why do we want Washington mandating solutions to the local citizens and government? The founders gave the power to the people, not the federal government." ~ Scott

What would Billy Sunday think of school shootings?
Perhaps more important than a national conversation on guns, he would call for a national inquiry into what killer kids are being taught in public schools. '"Rivers of America will run with blood filled to their banks before we will submit to them taking the Bible out of our schools.'" ~ Bill

(Cynthia Davis' latest podcast can be found at this link. Enter at your own risk.)