It’s not guns. It’s not race. It’s not laws. It’s evil.

And the same culture that professes shock and outrage at the killings encourages their cause on a daily basis.

It’s not guns. It’s not race. It’s not laws. It’s evil.

For many decades we have had essentially the same gun laws. We have had more or less the same racial issues. We have had “income inequality” since income has been a thing. Some will insist these things have gotten worse, but they haven’t. What’s gotten worse is the manifestation of human nature.

The common thread you’ll find with every supposedly shocking act of violence - whether it’s Boston, Sandy Hook, San Bernardino, Orlando, Ford Hood, Columbine, Kalamazoo, Baltimore or Dallas - is pure evil. Someone in each incident made a conscious decision to harm others, in some cases many others. Whether the killers were jihadists or racial activists or deranged Americans, they all decided to kill. Their guns didn’t tell them to do it. Donald Trump didn’t tell them to do it.

It was their idea. Because of all the choices they could have made that day, an act of unspeakable evil got the nod.

This is the reality that America doesn’t know how to grapple with, because it’s spent much of its existence trying to pretend that evil either a) doesn’t really exist; or b) is some sort of subjective notion that can’t really be defined. Because of that, we have a tendency to think that everything that goes wrong must at its heart be the result of something we should have done, but didn’t do, in the political realm. I see that Obama has already jumped on his usual go-to narrative about gun control - a curious proposition considering that everything the shooters did in Dallas last night was already against the law. Obama thinks making it illegal for them to obtain the guns will now deter them?

I don’t even think Obama really believes that. I just think Obama is ideologically predisposed to believe that government has the solution to everything, and gun control is the only “do something” knee-jerk he can come up with, so every time this happens, the knee jerks again in exactly the same way.

The mayor of my city - a good man - just posted on Facebook that “as a nation, we are better than this.” But I can’t help but ask: Why should we think we are? If we really were better than this, then this would not be happening with such increasing frequency. If evil is on the rise, it can’t be true that America as a nation, collectively, is as good as it once was. Something has crept in. Something has risen.

It’s not as if mass shootings began in the past few years. Every day when I walk into my local post office, I see this plaque (Below):

It’s not guns. It’s not race. It’s not laws. It’s evil.

Do you remember what happened on November 14, 1991? You’ve probably heard the term “going postal” to describe a person who snaps and goes off on everyone around him, often with deadly consequences. It gives me nothing but sadness to tell you this, but the incident that gave rise to that expression happened in our town. The postal worker who snapped, for whatever reason, became a mass murderer in a single moment of rage and violence. It was 25 years ago. We remember it not only because we see the plaque every day - and yes, we all still use that same building - but because at the time it was such a shocking and unusual event. In 1991, we had the same gun laws we have today. But things like this simply didn’t happen. Now they simply do happen, with stunning regularity.

Why? What changed? You can blame the “gun culture” all you want, but there’s something much more rotten in the larger culture. The trend I notice is that, in media, in entertainment and in politics, the prevailing trend of the moment is to encourage and celebrate certain things. These things include: Resentment, anger, racial strife, drug use and the limitless indulgence of every desire of the flesh. Every incident is a racial incident. Every person with money is to blame for the plight of the poor. Every “recreational” substance is cool to use. Every form of sex - any time, with anyone - is A-OK. We’re legalizing pot and criminalizing the option of not baking a cake. We’re legalizing gay marriage and mocking people who cite biblical instructions for marriage. We’re making heroes of people who enter this country illegally, while making racist monsters of people who think we should do something about that.

And the police shootings? Horrible as they are, let’s just be honest here: The news media love these stories, and they love to push the racial angle every chance they get, because there is no kind of news story the media loves more than a race riot. It gives them awesome video. It gives Geraldo-wannabes a chance to stand there and look cool in the live-action shot. It gives narcissistic anchors the chance to lecture the rest of us about racial understanding. And it gives all of them the opportunity to push the narrative of the unrepentant, evil, white America that still has to atone for its sins.

They push this narrative obsessively. The average American - black or white, right or left, rich or poor - is not sitting around thinking about race all the time. Those in the media never stop thinking about it or talking about it, nor do their counterparts in the political class. They want minorities to be angry and incensed, because that’s what they think rich white America deserves. So they push the narrative.

And when they’ve pushed hard enough, someone snaps. Someone takes up arms. Someone sets fire to a business. And they take you there live.

Evil is on the rise, and America’s prevailing culture is encouraging it every step of the way. By mocking God. By mocking all notions of virtue. By scoffing at every moral limitation on people’s behavior. By attacking the people who preach Jesus Christ. By tearing down traditional marriage and going to war against everyone who still holds out belief in it. By telling Americans that certain kinds of people are responsible for all their problems.

And here’s another way the culture encourages the rise of evil: A candidate for president is shown to have lied, broken laws and put the nation’s security at risk strictly for the sake of her own political interests. Nothing is done. No one cares. No one seems to think this is a reason not to make her president.

There is no sanction for the doing of what’s wrong, and there is no objective agreement of what evil consists of. There is no moral code we all accept. There are only factions. There are only people maneuvering for power vis-a-vis other people, and we don’t make judgments about the morality how they do it. We just express our admiration for their shrewdness.

This is the description of a culture that gives rise to evil. Nothing is wrong because no one wants to accept any limits on themselves. So all restraints are lifted. What do you think that is going to lead to?

And here’s where political activists of all stripes will be frustrated: There isn’t a policy solution to this. There is no way for your favorite politician to “do something” to “make sure this never happens again.” The nation, culturally, needs to stop disdaining righteousness, stop mocking virtue, stop rejecting God.

The people who still love the Lord need to pray for this. And they need to say this boldly. Jesus Christ is the only authority who can turn this around. A nation that hates, rejects and mocks Him can wring its hands all it wants about how shocking all of this is. Doesn’t matter. That same nation’s culture is laying the groundwork for more of it every day.


Dan Calabrese