It is Not the Firearms - It is What the People Have Become

Easter - Evergreen Street

I was between six and eight years of age, living on a street called "Evergreen" about two blocks from Humboldt Park. A neighbor kid, older than me, decided to play "Indian" with his new toy bow and arrow. The wooden arrow had a rubber suction-cup at the end. Problem was he had previously removed the rubber cup at the end and sharpened the end of the wooden arrow's shaft with a pocket knife. By sharpening the end it changed the diameter of the wood which made the rubber cup fit too loosely. As I approached he drew back the bow and let loose the arrow aiming for my chest. It was a weird moment because it seemed that time had suddenly slowed. I saw the arrow flying through the air which was faster than what I was seeing with my eyes and my brain conceiving it, and in midair the rubber cup fell off and the sharpened wood arrow struck me in the chest just below the collar bone. And there, much to my shock and I guess the kid's, an arrow is sticking into my chest and the weight of it (because it did not go deeply) it hung there. After removing it, and I don't remember the details whether I went up to our apartment to announce that I had been shot by an arrow and how it happened - my father came storming down to the sidewalk and by that time the kid had run home realizing the stupid thing he did, standing with his father. My father said some angry words, pointing to the superficial wound on my chest, yelling something to the effect how stupid his kid was, grabbed the bow from the shocked kid's hands and broke it into pieces. It was the end of that drama. I never held a grudge against the kid, but it seemed not long after the family wasn't there anymore.



Take the same scenario and fast forward to more "modern" times and the father of the kid who got shot with an arrow would call the local law enforcement, press charges and take the family to court. Meanwhile, soccer-mom and her teenage daughter would start a neighborhood rally-protest to ban toy bows-and-arrows.

Role-Playing

That took place during a time when a child's hero was Disney's Davy Crockett adventure series, or one of the detectives on the TV show Dragnet, or reenacting a WW2 combat squad fighting Germans across Europe like the TV series Combat! Mattel and other toy manufacturers were making "Tommy" guns that made sounds and shot rubber bullets with soldier attire complete with an M1911 sidearm and plastic grenade attached to the equipment belt, Winchester rifles and Colt peacemakers for pretend cowboys, and sub-nose toy revolvers for pretend police and detectives. On our block, we would get together with the "cool" things we got for Christmas or our birthdays fighting imaginary enemies on the sidewalk and nearby alley in a role-playing scenario inspired by WW2 films being featured on our black-n-white TVs. None of us could imagine what too often is in the news today about mass shootings in schools and other places because we role-played the good guys. We could never imagine ourselves committing such atrocities, much less anyone else.

Sunday Night TV, est. 1954

Television and Hollywood films, like all children, had an impact upon us even though we knew and were told it was all make believe. There were the wonderful family films produced by Disney on TV and at the movie theater of adventure and a fantastical world that many wish could be true reminiscent of the opening song of The Wonderful World of Disney entitled When You Wish Upon a Star. It was a Sunday evening ritual for families across the nation.

Today there isn't any Disney TV series that families can enjoy and bad and/or violent characters are portrayed in Hollywood films becoming the "heroes".
The major change in our society started when communist organizations that immigrated to our country began to get organized at our college campuses, sponsoring protests against the Vietnam War that, for many, Americans did not understand why we were involved.

Many fathers were veterans of WW2 or the Korean War and were apprehensive about their sons joining or being drafted into a seemingly never-ending "conflict" in Southeast Asia fighting against communists of North Vietnam with allies of South Vietnam whose government was corrupt. It is true that initially it was all about stopping the spread of communism - which was a failure in the end with a communist dictator only 90 miles from Florida coast by the name of Castro. But in reality, the draft should never have been implemented for a war that the authorities considered a "conflict" and not a national emergency like the world wars.

Things seem to get more complicated in the world after the assassination of President Kennedy, a popular president. The public adored Jacqueline Kennedy, our First Lady and media did not disrespect her like they do today with Melania Trump. Compared, Melania is bringing elegance back to the White House that hasn't been seen since Jacqueline and Nancy Reagan.
Yes, there was violence in the world surrounding my naive youthful days described. If
The neighborhood consisted of mostly Catholics made up of Poles, Germans, and Italians. My parents had a tab running at the local grocery store operated by a Polish family. My best friend's family operated an Italian restaurant that featured the best pizza in the world that delivered. Sometimes we would get free pizza because of a wrong order or via some teenage prankster called in a pizza that was not ordered by the recipient. When my father, after working two jobs, saved enough we left the big city and moved to the suburbs, the "Burbs". If you haven't guessed already, the city was Chicago known then and today as the "murder capital".

There were two schools in the area - one a "public" government-run school named after Von Humboldt, like the Park where ethnic festivals occurred during the course of a year featuring Polish, Italian, and Hispanic (mostly Puerto Ricans and a few Mexicans) and the Catholic school for those who could afford it. But as children in general are like, we all, for the most part, got along with each other. Richard Daley was the Mayor, who signed my birth certificate when he was the County Clerk. He started a program called "Clean Up Week", where neighborhoods would get together, mostly children, and clean up their neighborhoods and plant city gardens hoping that their block would win the best neighborhood award. He may have been known as "Little Caesar" and rose to power via less than scruple circumstances, but he loved Chicago and made many improvements during his reign as "dictator".

Lake Shore Drive - I-55

He created a fantastic huge emporium on Lake Shore Drive where the annual auto show took place and became a family tradition to visit during the month of January to see the latest auto models and concept cars of the future. He instigated improvements upon downtown area and museums were visited whenever I could go there. When I got older, I would take a bus and spend a day at the Museum of Natural History or the Museum of Science and Industry. But there was (and still is) more - the Shedd's Aquarium, the Planetarium, and the Chicago Art Museum. Chicago had an opera as well.

But the neighborhood was changing and after I was attacked by knife-wielding thugs one early evening when I was sent to the local drugstore for my mother - which caused me to run for my life when I was able to escape, using my knowledge of alleys and at one point rooftop of an apartment building I was able to escape relatively unharmed. We moved away to the suburbs. During this time I was forced to jump on a parked car to escape a rabid dog that emerged from an alley. Apparently someone called the police and they arrived not long after I had used elevation to escape the four-legged monster - and when they arrived the dog had given up on me and headed back into the alley. I heard gunshots and the unfortunate animal was put down.
Exciting and interesting times, but I digress.

The Hippies who protested, sometimes violently, the Vietnam War sponsored by communist organization agitators, had moved on and became professors. Some cut their hair and became "Yuppies" joining the establishment they used to protest. But regardless, society was changing with their influence of "Free Love" and other Utopian ideology that fit right into their Marxist political tendency. Times were changing, not necessarily for the better.
Point here is that those days of code of honor, respect for elders, and all the other tried-and-proven values were disappearing, replaced with socially engineered nonsense and the Marxist influence was becoming more penetrated within the social and government structure - gaining power through the wealth of trade unions and cheating at elections became the norm.

There were toy firearms and their commercials on TV to inspire children to beg for things for Christmas, the beginning of using children in the commercial gambit that would take over the whole concept of the Christmas holiday. High schools sponsored "gun clubs" and had competitions for after-school curriculum. No one would ever think there would be a movement against the 2nd Amendment.
As long as there is a civilization, there will be poverty and crime; and if one does some honest, thorough research, they will see that the two go hand-in-hand - poverty conditions producing more crime. Another phenomenon that the media and Democrats ignore is that when the 2nd Amendment is forbidden for law abiding citizens - violent crime increases. This was proven in a study by John Lott and others, but the media and Democrats are not paying attention.

All in all, and what I am pointing out is that true more people own firearms today than before even though the "gun culture" has changed but compared to the amount of firearms owned by law abiding citizens - the violent crime rate is actually low until you mix in the fact that nonsensical mass shootings are taking place like never before.
Is it the "gun culture"? Is it the "assault rifle"?
No, it is what our culture has become and the fact that we have allowed an enemy of the free world to immigrate here and establish themselves with no intention to assimilate, but to subjugate and establish what the theocratic religion that belongs in the 7th century, not in the 21st.
In addition, our standards, values and code of conduct has become polluted by people who are favoring social engineering to match their own warped frame of mind and desire to control other people. It is evident in our society, our educational system and our government in the form of what is called the "Deep State".

The horrific mass shootings are not caused by firearms, but the system of culture and lack of personal responsibility to raise children with principles and traditions that work - but are stymied because it is allegedly "outdated". As outdated as the Constitution, according to democratic-socialists (Marxists), and those "wigged old White men" who wisely created it and founded our republic never meant to be a democracy or anything else that history has shown to not work.

It's not the firearms, it is the people and We the People must do something about it because those who have commandeered our society and government certainly are not going to seek reformation.
Reinforcing (reforming) family values and returning the code of conduct that makes a great civilization, and raising/educating our children to gain knowledge that will make them responsible adults and what they need to succeed in life is up to We the People - NOT the government and those that operate it. Government needs to be "less" (as prescribed in Constitution), not "more".