“Through social and moral decay, we are desensitized to the value and dignity of human life.”

Those not my words. Rather, they belong to Matt Bevin, Governor of Kentucky.

If you get a chance, go to Facebook and look him up. There’s an eight-minute video of Gov. Bevin explaining his viewpoint on the issue of gun control.

Of course, the top elected official in the Bluegrass State caught some flack over his comments. One newspaper there, interjecting their own interpretation of his thoughts, took him to task….calling him a Thanksgiving Turkey.

Yep, that’s the way our nation is spiraling downward faster than Scottie Montgomery’s approval rating at ECU….if you don’t like what someone says or does, simply degrade them with nasty comments.

Anyway, back to Gov. Bevin and his stance on gun control. He rationalizes the problem is deeply rooted in cultural change.

“What has shifted in the last 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years,” Bevin quizzes. “It’s not the percentage of guns that we find in homes. (Back then) children didn’t walk into schools and shoot their fellow students or even themselves.”

Back in his days as a student, he said kids took guns to school, most in their own vehicles. He’s right because I did so. It wasn’t uncommon or even frowned upon back then to have your weapon packed away in your car/truck for the simple reason that when you left school that day you were going hunting with some friends. I did it countless times, but never, ever did I consider using it to inflict pain and suffering on my peers. Why….because I was taught by my parents to respect others.

“So, what has changed,” asked the Governor. “We as a culture, as a society has changed. We don’t value human life like we once did. We’ve removed, increasingly, the respect for the dignity of other people.”

He added that included the degradation of women and for human life.

“It desensitizes us at every turn,” he continued.

Bevin feels violent video games, popular among children of all ages as well as young adults, are part of the problem.

“It’s through violent video games where literally you are encouraged to go back and finish them off, where you get points for kill counts and you slaughter people,” he noted. “That desensitizes people to the value of life.”

Call him old-fashioned, but Bevin, like myself, has witnessed a 180-degree turn in what was once considered taboo to show on television. Many, not all, TV shows of today are full of violence and sex. Why, because sex and violence sells.

Nowadays, it’s acceptable on TV to use the Lord’s name in vain and not have it censored, but yet slang references to alternative lifestyles are “bleeped.”

“Today we seem to want to remove any sense of moral authority from everything,” Gov. Bevin states.

“Over the last 40 years we’ve aborted 50 million children and we have states that allow for medically assisted suicide being provided by doctors,” he said. “At both ends of the life spectrum we’re losing the value for life. You couple that with the fact that all these other things are changing. We have so many of our young people that are becoming suicidal and depressed because of social media.

“If we’re not addressing this cultural issue, we are kidding ourselves. Shame on us if we don’t say something about this,” Bevin remarked. “And then the media comes in and attacks the messenger, looking for imperfections in the message and the messenger.

“Shame on us if we don’t sound the alarm on those changing our moral values. Shame on us for assuming that a piece of legislation is the solution,” he concluded.

Perhaps I’m too simple-minded, but gun control is all about two things…the hand that holds the weapon and the mindset of the same individual. If you view a gun as a way to provide self-defense to you and your family, or as a means to put food on the table (or even for sport like target shooting), then you, like millions of average Americans, completely understand how to safely use one. If none of that last sentence applies to your mindset, then you shouldn’t own a gun or have easy access to one.

 

Cal Bryant is the Editor of Roanoke-Chowan Publications. Contact him at cal.bryant@r-cnews.com or 252-332-7207.