THE GUNS OF PROSPERITY

A news item reporting a recent shootout at a Florida school in the US that killed 17 people proved once again that all is not well with the fancied American society. If children go to schools with the fear of being murdered by gunmen on the lunatic fringe, there is something terribly wrong with that society. It was in the month of February this year that a gunman opened fire with an AR-15 style assault rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and killed 17 people. And it is no stray incident. Such incidents are taking place at a nagging frequency. In fact it is estimated by a general interest news site Volks.com that firearms killed more 15 to 19 year olds than cancer, heart diseases and diabetes combined in 2016. And 2018 has just begun. What do we call such a society where these things are happening? Championing human rights in other countries is different and makes headlines and also helps those champions score brownie points. But what about protecting human beings in your own country? There is something terribly wrong with your societies which proclaim to be advanced, liberal and, yes, world leaders. But let them look inwards. Are they? The US society is a case in point. Too much openness and a heavy dose of liberalism seems to be the problem leading to such ugly scenarios. Rightly are the people waking up to the ills effects of unbridled freedom that the liberal societies permit? The issue is the subject matter of a major debate as one parent of an 18-year-old daughter killed in the indiscriminate shoot out puts it. “How many schools, how many children have to be get shot? It stops here, with this administration and me, because I’m not going to sleep until it is fixed”. Many such parents are questioning President Donald Trump with anguish and rage. The intensely emotional debate veers around the question how to respond to such gun massacres in American schools. And who knows it may well be the parks, the market place, and the public congregation. It definitely calls for some serious and ingenious solution. Merely wishing that if the teachers of the school had concealed weapons they would have shot the gun man makes little sense. Rather, it is utter nonsense. An eye for an eye ends up making the whole world blind. Or at best, leaves in the end one man with one eye. A society that throws values to the wind in its mad race for material prosperity will in the end come to grief. That perhaps is the lesson that can be learned from these shoot outs. But there is need to go deeper into the problem. Why is there  so much of hatred and anger that explodes in indiscriminate firing. Why does violence become a means to vent pent-up feelings. There is a need to find answers to all such questions. Violence begets violence and, more violence more so. Only peace and non-violence can win over violence as was demonstrated by the apostle of peace Mahatma Gandhi. There is need to create a culture of peace and non-violence if America wants to be the world leader and the land of opportunities. They need to learn peace and non-violence from Gandhi. People going on a shooting spree in schools are signs of sickness of a society. Vulgar consumerism and excessive consumption leads to such sickness.