Time to Consider Other Options
To Curb Increasing Gun Violence

By Rance Thomas

As I stated in an article a few weeks ago, something needs to be done about gun violence. I suggested that we need to have more police officers in our neighborhoods especially in those high crime areas. I also said that we need more highway patrol officers on our highways. This is still true, but we need to do more in preventing these types and all types of violent crimes from happening in the first place.
There are some who call for defunding the police but to do so would be a mistake. Instead of having fewer police officers, we need more to deal with the prevention of violent crime. The more police are on the street or are visible in police cars, the less likely individuals will engage in shootings on the streets, into homes, and into cars. This would be the case due to the fear of being seen and caught.
Police departments need to focus more on the prevention of crime rather than just responding to crimes that have already been committed. Of course, the more officers they have the more they would be able to do this.
Based upon the drastic increase in gun violence in our neighborhoods, on the highways, and throughout the country recently, it is time that something else be done to deal with this terrible situation. The increase in gun violence is occurring all the way from New York to Utah, Colorado, California, and recently Chicago and places in between.
For example, within the last few weeks mass shootings have occurred in New York Times Square where four individuals and one four-year-old child were injured from a shooting. Further, a mass shooting took place by a sixth-grade female student who shot two students and a custodian at Rigby Middle school in Rigby, Utah. She would have shot more if a teacher had not restrained her until the police arrived.
These types of crimes are taking place in many areas across the country with more of our young children being shot.
It has been reported that there has been an increase in shootings due to an increase in gun sales. This might be true to some extent but there are other causes as well. For example, many of these crimes are committed

by teenagers and young adults who can’t legally buy guns.
Unfortunately, many of our young people are not being taught values that enable them to have a concern for the welfare of others. In many of the reports on violent crimes, some of our young people are on the streets late at night and early in the morning often with older
teenagers. Thus, these individuals are being taught values by older teenagers rather than by parents and schools.
Since so many of these shootings are work related, we definitely need to do something about mental illness. Some of the mass shootings that occur in other places are highly likely due to mental illness as well.
Of course, there are other causes of shootings and mass shootings but too much for this space in the column.
As a result, they are learning values that stress the here and now rather than long term goals. Because of the focus on the here and now, the more attention and notoriety the mass shooters receive from their behavior, the more others are to engage in the same kind of behavior. This is the case, because they do not to see another way of gaining success or attention in the long term or in the future. That is, the more they see the amount of attention and notoriety that mass shooters gain from their shootings, the more others with similar values and in similar circumstances tend to follow their examples.
Therefore, parents and schools as well as churches need to be more involved in teaching our youth values that will give them hope for a better future. Churches could organize youth ministries and reach out to the community to work with youth.
Of course, communities could be more supportive of organizations that are currently working with youth to help them acquire the values they need to be more hopeful and law abiding.

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