What's Going On: Why more guns, or less guns, aren’t the solution we need

 When a tragedy similar to last week’s mass shooting at a South Carolina church occurs, it doesn’t take long for the solutions to surface.

And this time, we aren’t being disappointed.

Gun supporters, paranoid Christians and those who refuse to believe this was racially motivated argue this is an attack against Christianity in general and that the only way to prevent it from happening in the future is to arm churchgoers.

Gun control supporters, on the other hand, say the solution is fewer guns.

The enlightened pacifist who recognizes this for what it is, a racially-motivated attack against blacks, says the solution is found in changing a culture in which African Americans, starting with the one who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, are demonized is the solution.

Those are all simple-minded solutions.

Not enough guns, too many guns, too violent a culture … whatever reason you like, there is one common denominator in all of our recent mass shootings: a lack of respect.

Whether it’s the 21-year-old with pasty white skin shooting black parishioners at a church, or a wild-eyed young man shooting up a theatre, or two angry, bullied high school students at Columbine, all the suspects were motivated by uncontrolled anger and rage, which manifested itself in the ultimate sign of disrespect.

There really is no way to disrespect a person more than to decide they are no longer worthy of living. To make that decision and act on it shows a level of arrogance matched only by its level of disdain for the victim, especially a nameless one.

I’m not going to call you a name. I’m not going to spit on you. I’m not going to smack in you the ear. I’m going to shoot you until you are dead because in my world, you don’t deserve to live.

That’s essentially the rationale at work.

And where is this lack of respect rooted? We didn’t have mass shootings 50 years ago, so something about us as a society has changed.

We don’t have much respect, but we do have an abundance of violent video games, movies and television shows to desensitize us to the value of human life.

We don’t have much respect, but we do have schools where children are no longer spanked.

We don’t have much respect, but we have a lot of families that don’t eat, pray or play together.

We don’t have much respect, but we do have a lot of empty pews at church.

We don’t have much respect, but we do have a lot of single-parent families.

We don’t have much respect, but we do have a political system more concerned with making the other party look bad and keeping the public in a constant state of fear than with achieving real solutions.

We don’t have much respect, but we do have Honey Boo-Boo and Miley Cyrus to entertain us.

Arming preachers, or not arming them, or campfires with regular choruses of Kumbaya aren’t the solution.

We have to start with something much, much more basic: simple respect.

Gregory Orear is the General Manager/Editor of the Red Oak Express and Glenwood Opinion-Tribune. He can be contacted at publisher@redoakexpress.com.