Violent Behavior and the Blaming Games in Our Schools

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By the Rev. Dr. Joe Renfro

Our nation has been shocked by the mass murder of seventeen people at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward County, Parkland, Florida, and the blaming game is exploding all over the media with the availability of guns being the main villain. The Broward County school situation is a real illustration of this!

But what was the cause or were the causes?   Was the response of the Broward Country police to blame? Was his right to buy a gun the cause? Was it Cruz’s family background and his seeming lack of religious connections, the shock of losing his dearly loved adoptive mother, the resentment of losing his girlfriend, his love for guns, his psychosis, his feelings of failure, his obsession with violent video games, his bouts with depression, or the pharmaceutical drugs he had been taking to deal with the depression? Was Nikolas living in a world of fantasy?  Or could it have been our educational establishment that has subtracted the mental support available from religion and particularly Christian commitment, when it has tried to substitute in its place pharmaceutical drugs and other more scientific approaches as the cure-alls for mental problems?

There are probably many factors involved, but I want to observe four—Nikolas himself, the world of fantasy, the responses to the situation from various groups, and then to project the faith in anti-depressants to the neglect the spiritual supports, not just to the increasing number of people like Nikolas, but throughout all behavior control in education in our land. We need to find what will work, but we can see that the removal of the religious influences sixty years ago in schooling has only created more and more behavior problems in our schools and in society.  Things have increasingly become more and more violent, and the explosion of the use of anti-depressants evidently back before he was expelled from school has certainly not helped!

There is Nikolas himself, an ex-student at high school who was a young man very much immersed in the display of violence. His adoptive family situation was not one of family violence, and on the surface he was not a violent individual. However, there were many signs that a violent explosion was in the making. Shelby Speno, a neighbor, told the Sun-Sentinel that Nikolas had thrown eggs at their car once, stole neighbors’ mail, and had bitten a child, but these things are not really violent. However, as new information surfaces surrounding the mass shooting it comes out that the law enforcement had received many warning signs regarding him in the past few years detailing death threats and violent behavior. CNN reported about these dozens of calls made to local law enforcement about Nickolas Cruz with descriptions such as “mentally ill person,” “child/elderly abuse,” “domestic disturbance,” “missing person,” and more, but most of those warning calls resulted in “no written report.”

Enea Sabadini, a former classmate, told Buzzfeed that he began receiving messages from Cruz on Instagram saying things such as “iam going to shoot you dead” and “Im going to watch ypu bleed,” after he started dating Cruz’s ex-girlfriend last year. An FBI official acknowledged on Thursday the bureau received a tip months before the Florida high school massacre about a social media comment by a Nikolas Cruz, who aspired to be “a professional school shooter.” But the FBI let the ball drop!

The apparent bad evaluations are just the latest in a series of missed warning signs of Cruz’s behavior, including at least two reports to the FBI referencing Cruz wanting to be a “school shooter,” as there was his expulsion from school, thirty-six calls to local police during a six-year span, complaints about killing or hurting animals and numerous concerns expressed by students and teachers at the high school he would later turn into a slaughtering ground. A neighbor of accused shooter Nikolas Cruz told the Miami Herald that Cruz “escaped his misery” by playing video games for as much as fifteen hours a day. “It was kill, kill, kill, blow up something, and kill some more, all day,” he said. 

The Bible is very much against violence, as various scriptures speak up against it. Ezekiel 7:23 says, “Make the chain, for the land is full of bloody crimes and the city is full of violence.” Micah 2:1-2 says, “Woe to those who scheme iniquity, who work out evil on their beds! When morning comes, they do it, for it is in the power of their hands. Psalm 11:5 says, “The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked, and the one who loves violence his soul hates,” which is an anthropomorphic way (his soul hates) of pointing to God’s great hatred of violence.

This obsession with violence opens secondly to the fact that many of our youth are so caught up in fantasy, the fantasy of video games, much of the contemporary music, and much of the TV programming.

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin posted a video to his Facebook page, urging lawmakers and “anyone who’s in a position of influence” to consider how to repair the nation’s cultural fabric, which he said is “getting shredded beyond recognition.” Speaking to a radio interviewer, Bevin blamed a “culture of death that is being celebrated” via violent video games, TV shows and music.  (“Do Violent Video Games Make kids Violent..,?– Greg Toppo, USA TODAY  Feb. 20, 2018)

Villanova University Patrick Markey, psychologist and research and the co-author of the 2017 book Moral Combat: Why the War on Violent Video Games Is Wrong, said school shooters as a group “tend to do things that aren’t typical of their peers.”  Markey argues against blaming violent video games for violence such as the mass killings. He feels typical teenage behaviors include playing video games, many of them violent. “It’s just a sign of a healthy childhood to do things that our peers do, even if parents don’t like it,” he said.  (Ibid)

However, here with Cruz is obsession with violent video games so much so it would seem very evident that here is someone with a very sick mind.  The question comes as to how much an individual plays these games, the extent of violence, and what other avenues of involvement one might have.  Then too, many parents see that this fantasy can well result in actions that are not fantasy, for much of this can very much desensitize the youth. The killing field of the school could well have been a game in the mind of someone like that of Nikolas!  The Bible in Proverbs 14:2 well says “There is a way that seems right unto man, but the end thereof is the way of death,” and then Proverbs 1:8-9 says, “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not your mother’s teaching, for they are a graceful garland for your head and pendants for your neck.”  There is not much or any cultivation of wisdom in video games! I feel it is such a waste, for there so much positive mental action that is being neglected.

The third focus of this article is to observe the responses to the situation from various groups.

One group puts a basic focus on the availability of guns, the freedom to own guns. American has more mass shootings than any other developed nation, and not even by a little, and studies indicate that the rate at which public mass shootings occur tripled since 2011. From 1982 up to 2011, a mass shooting occurred roughly once every 200 days. Then, between 2011 and 2014 that rate has accelerated to at least one mass shooting every sixty-four days in the United States.  But is the freedom to own guns the cause for this increase in mass shootings?

It can be argued there are many reasons, however, why we should be able to own guns, depending on whether we are mentally stable and much of it might depend on what type of gun this might be.  Ordinary people should not be allowed to own things such as a machine gun. It is our right to keep and bear arms, and it is so important that it has been guaranteed in the Constitution and Bill of Rights of the United States of America.  George Washington said: “Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence…”  Enjoying guns is not a strange weird thing, as some anti-gun people insist. People have been hunting with long guns for centuries. Shooting is an internationally recognized Olympic sport.

People without guns are assaulted or murdered daily by criminals who have guns. Having a gun makes you better able to defend your family. If gun ownership is made illegal, criminals won’t turn in their guns. Gun control makes easy prey out of law-abiding citizens.  We are grateful for the police officers of our communities who have guns. However, the police can’t come to help you until after a crime has been committed. Having a gun may save your life and enable you to stay alive long enough to call for help from the police. Guns in the home are supports of safety, when gun owners keep guns responsibly. More children die every year in swimming pool accidents than in gun accidents. It is a fact that armed American men and women prevent two million crimes every year by having their guns.  Self-defense is more honorable and better for society than being a victim.

It is a fact that cities which impose strict gun control create the highest assault and murder rates in America. It is a fact that most gun crimes in America involve gangsters shooting other gangsters. Most all gun owners never use his or her gun to commit a crime. Most states issue permits to carry concealed handguns. It can be argued that bearing arms is the Christian thing to do, for the Lord Jesus said: “If you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one…” (Luke 22:36)

Nikolas Cruz should have never had a gun. Law enforcement could share blame for they did not do their job for allowing a person like Cruz to possess firearms.  His parents and later after their death, his guardian, should have seen this problem, and they could be blamed somewhat.  But his possession of firearms should not become a tool to attack the responsible ownership of guns.

The fourth focus of article is then to project the argument that faith in anti-depressants to the neglect the spiritual supports in education, is a central reason for much of inability of people like Nikolas to cope with the problems that would motivate them to do such a dastardly deed. Nikolas was no longer a student at school, but he had been, and the school had used drugs to control his behavior, as evidently his doctor had prescribed.  Schools look to medications to control behavior for people like Nikolas, but all it is only7 a short-term solution that creates a dangerous dependency. Psalms 32:8 says, “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.” Cruz did not have this directive or power in soul.

Sean Adl-Tabatabai observed that “It is a fact that the suspects from most of the deadliest U.S. mass shootings in recent years also had access to dangerous pharmaceutical drugs that can lead to violent behavior and can worsen the mental illnesses they are prescribed to treat.”  (“Family Say Florida School Shooter Was On Big Pharma Antidepressants,” Sean Adl-Tabatabai News, US, February 17, 2018)

Sean brings out that “While it is not clear how many medications Cruz was taking, the pharmaceutical drugs prescribed for depression and emotional issues are packed with a number of side effects that can lead to violent behavior,” and Sean went on in his article to bring out that:

As The Free Thought Project has reported, Las Vegas shooting suspect Stephen Paddock was prescribed the anti-anxiety drug diazepam in June, a few months before he was accused of opening fire out of his bedroom window at the Mandalay Bay Hotel, and killing more than fifty people.

The side effects from diazepam include “confusion, hallucinations, unusual thoughts or behavior; unusual risk-taking behavior, decreased inhibitions, no fear of danger; depressed mood, thoughts of suicide or hurting yourself; and hyperactivity, agitation, aggression, hostility.”

Aurora shooting suspect James Holmes killed twelve people and injured seventy when he opened fire inside of a movie theater in 2012, and he was also found to have been taking the antidepressant Sertraline, a generic version of the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) Zoloft.”

Sertraline has side effects that include ‘aggressive reaction; mood or behavior changes; and fast talking and excited feelings or actions that are out of control.’”

Gavin Long, the veteran who went on a shooting rampage in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was prescribed Lunesta and Ativan, both of which have an extended list of adverse side effects.

Both Lunesta and Ativan have overlapping side effects of aggression, agitation, changes in behavior, hallucinations, suicidal thoughts — and homicidal ideation.

Homicidal ideation is a common medical term for thoughts about homicide. There is a range of homicidal thoughts which spans from vague ideas of revenge to detailed and fully formulated plans without the act itself.

There have been 150 studies in seventeen countries on antidepressant-induced side effects. There have been 134 drug regulatory agency warnings from eleven countries and the EU warning about the dangerous side effects of antidepressants.

Despite this deadly laundry list of potential reactions to these medications, their use has skyrocketed in America by 400 percent since 1988.

Sean Adl-Tabatabai  rightly concludes that “As details emerge from the shooting, causing several lawmakers to call for gun control, many will ignore that fact that the suspects from most of the deadliest U.S. mass shootings in recent years also had access to dangerous pharmaceutical drugs that can lead to violent behavior and can worsen the mental illnesses they are prescribed to treat.” Anti-depressants are never to be prescribed to psychotics, but in the Cruz situation and many others they are.

It is sad in our society that our children are taught to trust more in drugs than in the message of the Savior.  A person can be addicted to legal drugs just as they can to illegal ones.  Many drugs alter the user’s state of mind so as to cause intoxication, and they can produce various types of an artificial “highs,” the sense of “euphoria,” a false sense of well-being, or similar change in brain function.  It is so easy to become dependent on this, whether by legal drugs or illegal drugs!

1 Corinthians 9:25-27says to “Bring our bodies into subjection to our minds, exercising temperance (self-control) like athletes in training, so our bodies will be properly guided by our minds.” Drug dependence can destroy this call to temperance. One of the main reasons why God condemns intoxication which could fit under drug highs is that, as Christians we face many serious temptations. In order to distinguish right from wrong and then have the will power to resist evil, our minds must think clearly and control our bodies. The Bible calls this sobriety and self-control, something that Cruz did not have! Legal drugs have their place, but evidently Cruz was under the influence of drugs that accelerated his desire to such a dastardly act, and of course with no religious training he felt no compulsion to obey the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” 

I read about a twenty-three-year-old young woman who was found dead in a car in Reidsville, North Carolina a long time ago. Her death was ruled a suicide. With her in the car was a written note saying:

“Jail didn’t cure me. Nor did hospitalization help me for long. The doctor told my family it would have been better, and indeed kinder, if the person who got me hooked on dope had taken a gun and blown my brains out. And I wish to God he had. My God, how I wish it!”

Also found with her was the following perverted form of Psalm 23 that read: “King Heroin is my shepherd. I shall always want. He maketh me to lie down in the gutters. He leadeth me beside the troubled waters. He destroyeth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of wickedness.Yea, I shall walk through the valley of poverty and will fear no evil, for thou, Heroin, are with me.Thy Needle and Capsule comfort me. Thou strippest the table of groceries in the presence of my family. Thou robbest my head of reason.My cup of sorrow runneth over. Surely heroin addiction shall stalk me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the House of the Damned forever.” – (Dear Abby, Ft. Wayne News-Sentinel, 5/80)

It is sad, but the argument could be made that since Cruz most probably had no spiritual training, that one could substitute the word, “anti-depressant” into the place of “King Heroin” for him and see a similar feeling of the woman who had committed suicide. 

Just think of the minds that are all messed up like that of Cruz, and the great failure of our society to even allow the administering of God’s medicine in our public schools in situations like this!  It can be argued that possibly if the religious influences, that were once part of our educational system in America were still in effect, this might not have happened. The debate and blaming game goes on, but I hear little about the neglect of best solution-the gospel!