A response to Kelly Scoles' "Second Opinion"

Hello again Kelly.
It's always a gravely depressing task to review cold-blooded killings, even more so when looking at a school shooting. It's also depressing to know that convincing liberals that it's never the fault of the firearm is impossible.

After debating liberals for several generations, I recognize that the intransigence of the liberal Left is due to their use of a novel logic, which dismisses facts. This illogical habit allows liberals to affirm many fallacious conclusions. For example, they demand that everyone acknowledge trans-genderism. They have convinced themselves that a man can think himself into being a woman. At the same time, they also demand that we all "follow the science". They live in a make-believe logical culture, which leads them into a swamp of wild contradiction.

Take the issue of firearms for example. Since the 1960s, at least, liberals have argued that a gun is downright evil because it kills people. Conservatives contend that a gun is an inert, inanimate object, incapable of thought or motion. Being a truth, this can never change. However, there is great potential power in every loaded gun, just as there is great potential power in a quake-prone cliff overhanging a roadway. Both things need an outside trigger to actualize their potential power. In short, before conservatives can agree with liberals on their beliefs (here about guns), liberals have to make credible logical arguments - otherwise liberals just speak foolishness. In this matter of guns, they speak only impassioned foolishness.

Whew! That's a lot of formal talk, but with liberals it's necessary to start at the raw beginning.

To convict Ethan Crumbley of murder, it's true that prosecution must find so-called "mens rea" ("guilty mind." in Latin). Every state has its own criminal laws, and we're talking about a 15-year-old minor here. I would like to skip the incriminating evidence and talk about that evil gun, the true culprit, as liberals see it. Let me also skip talk about alleged "congressional extremists" like Marjorie Taylor Green, Madison Cawthorn, and a various assortment of "truth-deniers" each of whom believe in my definition of a gun. As for the "malignant culture of violence" I'll have to wait for a different column to show how that is caused by the liberal, Progressive Left-Democratic Party, et. al.

The gun was given to the defendant by his parents. Huge body of evidence alleged on parental criminal negligence. But it's the guns, too many of them, that drives liberals crazy."...Lauren Boebert (R-CO) show them and their children grinning and holding guns). "How nuts are these people?" Personally, I think "grinning" here is a loaded word. "Smiling" would be more appropriate. I see four healthy, very happy boys in Colorado standing in front of a Christmas tree with their new (apparently) AR-15s. The gross tragedy of the killings in Wisconsin should not dissuade a truthful examination of the incident by the general public. The picture at Oxford High School today is the absolute opposite of the picture in Colorado with the Boebert kids, near perfect examples of America Present and America Past. America Present is a different place - unrecognizable to those, like me, who experienced the very best years of our nation, strong, healthy, and Judeo-Christian in its ethics and culture. There is simply no comparison in the quality of life.

I grew up on the ranch in Camarillo, in a family of nine - six boys. I know precisely the joy the four Boebert boys felt when this photo was taken. My younger brother and I received .22 rifles on that glorious Christmas day - his, a Winchester model 60, mine was a model 61, hammerless. Before that we used a Model 56 Winchester, a beautiful bolt action "youth rifle", all with walnut stocks. I loved that rifle. My father taught us firearms safety - and ethics (don't shoot ducks on the water, and don't shoot birds of prey, for starters). Many of my friends lived on adjacent ranches, all had .22 rifles, and we hunted (plinked) together in Calleguas Creek and on Old Boney Mountain. Life was very good - it was the 1950s, population of Camarillo 5000+. Crime was virtually unheard of (with Constable Ellis on alert for walnut poachers). To this day I can draw every feature of the ranch.

All of us enjoyed firearms, well into our 70s. One of us became a dentist, another successful farmer, two others retired sheriff's deputies. Each of us served honorably in military service. Guns remained inert, inanimate objects - however, many people using them have changed dramatically, as has our culture.

But Ethan Crumbley was not a Farrell boy or a Boebert boy, and he was born and bred into a nation that has become degenerate since the 1960s. We have lost that special grace of Judeo-Christian culture. It seems that everyone now has too much of everything - we are overgrown with high-tech wiregrass ethics and kudzu pride - as though we will live forever by our own power, despite the wolves of Communism, the jackals of Jihadist Islam, and seduction of pornographic entertainment. What filled the heart of Ethan Crumbley replaced the innocence of his early youth. What caused this hatred was not something sudden, it accumulated like plaque in the disease of coronary arteries, during times of un-Christian encounters, at home and in school. He is only 15, it didn't take long to clog those arteries. Too many people, young and old, in many ways, told him he didn't belong. He hated others because he hated himself as their reflection. Without sentimentality, had those times provided acceptance and understanding those arteries may well have remained healthy.

What Ethan Crumbley did was indeed monstrous, and I bleed psychologically for the families of those who were killed. But I also believe the monster (read Devil) in the others to come can be exorcized by recognizing that darkness early on and applying the only perfect medicine for such a diseased heart, the Divine Mercy of Jesus Christ. We knew this in the 50s but have forgotten this since the 60s.

I can already hear the remonstrance of a hundred Liberal Leftists baying for my hide. "Stop talking religion!" they say. "Enough of this Jesus stuff!" as they have always said. But if we stop and think of how foolish it is to blame the gun for the crime (an inert object) instead of a diseased heart craving revenge for deeply perceived injuries, prevention can happen. Punishment is easy. Prevention can be laborious, especially in our new pagan nation.

Only good can happen with guns in the hands of good people. The opposite is also true.