Many articles have been submitted to The Bulletin since the Florida high school shooting advocating for sensible changes in gun control laws. Some may have merit. Most don’t. Here’s why:

Ignore for the moment that a person committed to killing students can find out how to make a fertilizer or pressure cooker bomb on the internet. Never mind that a committed killer can choose to drive a pickup truck with a bed full of gasoline cans into a parking lot full of students just getting out of school.

It has become way too easy to attack the NRA. To do so is conveniently simplistic and misdirected. Of approximately 100 million legal gun owners (1 in 3 Americans own guns) only a minuscule 5 million are members of the NRA. Most gun owners don’t need the NRA to advocate for their Second Amendment rights. I don’t and never will. Next time you read an anti-gun article, consider the tens of millions of non-NRA legal gun owners who didn’t kill anyone yesterday.

Despite well-intentioned arguments to the contrary, gun control doesn’t work. Gun violence in Chicago, a city well known for strict gun laws, is proof positive. More than 100 people were shot in Chicago over the course of one of the bloodiest Fourth of July weekends last year. The knee-jerk reaction of those who immediately blame guns and conveniently ignore more important social issues contributing to gun violence need a significant dose of reality. It is naive and delusional to think changing a few gun laws is going to end gun violence because it doesn’t solve the larger cultural problem.

Young people predisposed to violence are pushed over the edge by numerous social influences today that Americans a generation or two ago never had to deal with:

• Video games that desensitize violence by awarding points for the number of people killed.

• Hollywood movies that glorify blood lust with graphic violence.

• Rap music that extols violence against police and demeans women.

• Epidemic pornography readily available to even very young people.

• Social shaming and cyber bullying.

• Parents who choose to relinquish real parenting to smartphones and social media.

• Adults in charge who refuse to set good examples, like the mayors of “sanctuary cities” sending the message it is OK to ignore laws you don’t like.

• Schools providing safe spaces (echo chambers) for immature students who can’t deal with reality, disinviting speakers who challenge liberal dogma and tolerating the behavior of students shouting down those with different views. Education historically has been about developing critical-thinking skills and the ability to defend your position.

• Declining respect for the institution of marriage. CNN once looked at the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history, noting that, of the seven killers under 30, only one had his biological father around his whole childhood.

Witness the steady erosion of civilized standards of behavior, denunciation of common-sense notions of right and wrong, spurning of pride in the nation we live in and disrespect for law and order. Where are the values that used to bind communities together? Selfies, unfortunately, have taken over both literally and figuratively.

Young people today who commit atrocities are so confused. Too many kids today are adrift with a sense of anomie (social instability resulting from a breakdown of standards and values, and the personal unrest, alienation, and anxiety that comes from a lack of purpose or ideals). We all need to take a long hard look in the mirror and acknowledge our contributions to this dismal state of affairs before we once again succumb to the easy temptation to blame inanimate objects for violence.

At the end of the day, the problem we all must deal with is the monsters we create rather than the weapons they choose.

— Gregory Franklin lives in Bend.