For your entertainment

As America mourns the horrific aftermath of 26 murdered in cold blood and over 20 seriously injured - in some cases entire families wiped out while gathering in peaceful worship - little is more insulting to their memories and grieving loved ones than eager opportunists once again attempting to blame such calculated carnage on an inanimate object. If guilt is no longer reserved for the actual lawbreaker, a deranged family member and reported Antifa sympathizing atheist seeking mass death to fulfill a personal vendetta, I condemn the systemic moral degradation of our most basic societal values in film, music, video games and television; those mediums which not only desensitize millions of impressionable minds to the actual human toll of violence, but glorify bloodshed, validate vengeance, fantasize about presidential assassinations and mock Christianity as a legitimate and lucrative form of entertainment. And yet how many domestic mass shootings, plotted and carried out by unsuspecting individuals devoid of known criminal enterprises, occurred 50 or even 25 years ago?

Today's homicidal mentality is a disturbing reminder mass murders skyrocketed under Barack Obama by nearly 300% or roughly a number equal to all mass shootings between 1981 and 2009. But yes, by all means, let's blame a tool of ignorance and pray the perpetrator is a white Republican to fulfill the left's unending goal of eradicating the historical necessity of the Second Amendment in lieu of addressing the hostile aftermath of political agitators inciting class, race, gender and religious warfare in nearly every crevice of America solely to achieve a morally bankrupt end; the secular supremacy of progressivism in all phases of our daily lives. When the unsung actions of everyday role models are buried beneath the deafening applause for the false idols of pop culture, our children blinded by the almighty glare and avarice of Hollywood's golden calf, real heroes who transform countless lives for the better are incessantly lectured by celebrity hedonists, Red Carpet narcissists and aspiring political arsonists.

Unless a gun or any weapon of choice is not equally capable of saving a life and foiling an indeterminate number of crimes - including the armed citizen who courageously stopped Devin Patrick Kelley - what is the intangible difference between the two fates? There is no greater instrument of death than that of ideology, indoctrinated and insatiable hate: albeit Islam, radicalized academia or armed fascist activism. Pretending evil does not exist will no more save us from its wrath than legislation can prevent the infinite triggers of human nature. Changing this insidious course of extreme violence can only be achieved in our homes, classrooms and our eroding community standards of acceptable behavior. Instead of treating the victims of gun violence as political pawns used at the most opportune moments, drowning the underlying causes of such soulless brutality with those fake tears shed by media chameleons for public consumption, let us renew our societal obligation to teach our sons and daughters the value of human life - respecting the law, America, our elders and fellow man - rather than asking the contemporary price of admission to dehumanizing and ending one.