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Another mass shooting, another instant clash over gun laws. We no longer let grieving happen before we leap to our respective positions. And I am no exception—since there will always be inevitable calls for disarming the public, I recognize the need to step into the arena to answer such cries with the Second Amendment logic which is my beacon.
But as that familiar give-and-take unfolds again, there is an accompanying theme that should be less divisive: the common thread of mental dysfunction among mass shooters.
The Left is not as enthusiastic about addressing the human roots of our shooting tragedies, because that heavy lift does not invite laws that expand government's control over our liberties. But Democratic votes helped advance the recent congressional gun-law compromise which contained new funding for mental health treatment. So we have bipartisan acknowledgment of the psychological impairments that contribute to these tragedies we should all seek to curtail.
We need to grasp the ways in which we are allowing and even feeding the pathologies that can lead to breakdowns in normal development. Government will not have the answer; this one is on us.
For the umpteenth time, a portrait emerges of a disturbed loner, adrift from what used to be the widely agreed-upon best course for a young man to follow. Imagine a boy reared in a church-going, two-parent home, urged to get good grades while cultivating broad friendships and a social skill set that leads to marriage and family. Such an image seems closer to the nostalgia of Norman Rockwell paintings than to today's splintered culture.
The latest monster, identified by those close to him as an unemployed "YouTube rapper" who "kept to himself," exhibited voluminous evidence of deep disturbance.
Not everyone is going to be gregarious. There is nothing inherently menacing about introversion. And there is nothing intrinsically alarming about young people cultivating creativity in the online world; a growing list of Gen-Z millionaires have struck gold in that vast marketplace.
But some sense of balance is vital to a healthy upbringing. If a kid spends hours bathed in the light of screens, that is less of a problem if his life also contains companionship and productivity beyond a darkened cave.
Friends. Dating. A job. All of these environments prepare the mind and spirit for a healthy adulthood, precisely because they supply the highs and lows we all must learn to navigate. Friends can inspire or betray us. A dating relationship can bring joys or heartbreak. A job can be rewarding or frustrating. The upsides fuel our happiness and gratitude; the downsides teach us lessons that can toughen us. Both provide what used to be called "life lessons."
But we lost our way. Shoddy parenting makes it easy for kids to vanish into an online world and to insist that the people they meet in some bizarre virtual reality room are just the same as real friends in real life. Too often, parents don't have the guts to tell the youngsters how absurd that is. We have stopped guiding our boys in particular toward the previously valued traits of self-reliance and leadership.
Today's parents and grandparents will often wax nostalgic about their own childhoods, when they spent long, glorious days outside with friends, crafting adventures in a tangible world free of technology. While the diversions available in today's internet universe are nothing short of miraculous, they have taken root in a society that doesn't sufficiently teach moderation.
We've all seen tables at restaurants where entire families' noses are buried in phones and tablets. The kids return home and dive further into an online or gaming world rather than grab a bike and some friends to explore their own neighborhoods. Fixing this takes positive guidance and imagination. It's a tough sell to tell Billy to play outside when a dozen kingdoms on a dozen planets can equip him as a gladiator of the future in some addicting game.
All of these amazing technologies are fine if we provide kids with the strong and healthy guidance to peel away from them often. Modern society has failed miserably at this. Far too many of today's young men are rotting their brains in online fantasies instead of trying to date girls, grow friendships or develop a real-world professional skill.
We have allowed this to happen, not just in our homes, but in the values we have cast aside as a nation. What kind of dinosaur walks around in 2022 advising boys and young men to orient themselves toward dating, a steady job, and a productive life? Certain mockery awaits anyone suggesting the developmental value of an intact nuclear family and strong faith.
The lack of such guidance does not guarantee the sprouting of a mass killer. But it does guarantee a less healthy, less rewarding, less promising life path. And I'll bet you will never hear the following sentence in a news story after a future mass shooting: "up next, we will hear from the married mother and father of the shooter, who brought him to church every week. His large group of well-adjusted friends are also shocked, as are his co-workers at his stable job."
Mark Davis is a talk show host for the Salem Media Group on 660AM The Answer in Dallas-Ft. Worth, and a columnist for the Dallas Morning News and Townhall.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
