Days of Discontent

When we look back at these times, these days of discontent, I wonder if our grandchildren and great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren will say that this was the beginning of the end or that we conquered with grace? I grew up in Jefferson County, back in the days when everyone knew everyone and nobody locked their front door. It would have never occurred to me that there would be a time in Tennessee, God’s country, that crazy people would be shooting up our cities, towns, and suburbs. And yet, that is where we find ourselves.

What makes a person open fire on a recruiting office or a movie theater is beyond me. The total, unbelievable lack of morals that allows a gang to kidnap a young couple and torture them before killing them and disposing of their bodies like yesterday’s trash makes my blood run cold. Not to take personal responsibility away from these criminals but we, as a society, must be doing something terribly wrong.

Liberal or conservative aside, the bare bones truth is that these types of violence simply did not happen in my grandparent’s generation. When I was growing up, school shootings only happened in third world countries. Now they happen here-in Jefferson County. What have we done wrong? Where did we take a detour and head straight off the cliff?

I listened to the police chief of Nashville last week as he addressed the theater incident. Obviously, the attacker was unbalanced and the police chief cautioned the public that we cannot let a few crazy people, intent on harm, keep the public from living our lives. We cannot let what is dark in those few that would do evil take the light from our daily lives. And I agree. To live a life in fear is to let those few win. But, it is past time that we look at what we are doing wrong and make some corrections.

In my grandparents’ day and time, most households had a gun. Maybe not a handgun, but a gun for protection and hunting. When I went to school almost every guy carried a pocket knife and many had guns in their trucks in the school parking lot. That is not a commentary on gun control or school policy-it is simply fact. The situation that we find ourselves in now has very little to do with any kind of policy. That is all political fodder. This is a deeper problem and instead of swatting at the hornets, we need to be looking for the nest. Perhaps the answer lies closer to home than many want to think and, just perhaps, it has taken 35 years for the choices of the recent past to come home to roost. We certainly have come a long way from the days of our grandparents but is what we gained going to be worth the cost of what we have lost? I suppose only time, and history, will tell.