Our Paradoxical Violent Society

News broke today that President Obama is working on a $500 million effort to curb gun violence. Greater detail will be given to background checks, some guns won't be sold, and greater law enforcement in the schools are part of this effort.

Stepping back and looking at our society it's as if we are fighting against ourself and treating symptoms because we'd have to give up our guilty pleasures for genuine results. C.S. Lewis taught that law doesn't make a better man, a logic, or principle if you will, that we tend to ignore.

Living in a society that increasingly celebrates violence in movies, music and television and then asks its citizens to not participate in such acts would be humorous if the reoccurring result wasn't overall fear and devastation.

We live in and love our society where musicians who pride themselves on gang violence become the idols of children, movies and televisions shows with senseless killing become blockbusters, yet we hate it when the way we entertain ourselves is acted out in real life. I'll be the first to admit that I own some of this music and watch these movies/shows. I will also be the first in line to say that it is difficult to give these sources of entertainment up.

The questions become: Can we expect people to be repeatedly exposed to this and not allow it to influence their thinking? And, is reacting to this with increased spending on bans and more enforcement the REAL solution?

At what point can we expect more of our media? Or, accepting responsibility, at what point can we give this entertainment up? If the audience doesn't buy it, it wont sell, new messages will have to be incorporated into our media.

Strange to think that with such an educated government there is no mention of this. No attack on the messages that suggest and reinforce the acts that devastate our country.

Although crime may never be fully gone, we are masking the primary cause and hoping resolution will occur. Our politicians need to quit being afraid and thinking money is a solve all. Some things come down to responses stronger than money, like enacting self-discipline, rejecting popular negativity and demonstrating responsible values. Law cannot make better men because people canot be forced to be genuinely concerned about the welfare of others. If our leaders don't work towards a society that facilitates the development of better men we will see more laws and more skilled criminals in response.