The sign said, “Stop blaming guns and start teaching the value of human life.” Made me think about all the death of young people perpetrated by young people in Chicago and other gang infested cities. As we all know, the majority of people being killed are in black on black crimes. We also know that there are more abortions among black females that there are in any other race in America. This causes their religious leaders and communities to lament the loss of the next generation.

Here’s the thing, if kids in the gang culture are taught that being a man means shooting and killing anyone who might have insulted them, come into their territory, or impugned their manhood, they are taught to take a gun to even the score, Then what is the value of human life? If girls in the gang culture are taught that if they get pregnant sleeping around, prostituting themselves, or because they are careless, they are taught to kill their babies by aborting them, then what is the value of human life? And that is why there is a huge decline in black Americans throughout a large portion of American cities.

Along with that particular culture and race, are the rest of the kids who fall into the violence and uninhibited behavior of the gang cultures. The value of life of a human is treated as unimportant as a sneeze. Not even the gangs themselves mourn the loss of a member for long. In too many gang cultures, it is simply the way it is. So, if people are going to die from violence or drug use, why bother to care about them? Again, girls are taught that abortion is a form of birth control and that tissue is not a human being – even though it does have human DNA – so getting rid of it is no more important than blowing one’s nose.

Even among those who are affluent, or not part of gang culture, the idea that human life is valuable is laughed at. The exception being those who are religious who do not practice their religion as a reason to make war and kill others who do not believe as they do. However, those who are raised in a secular society without a moral platform based in caring about their fellow mankind, simply do not see a reason to care beyond their particular circle. Kids sit in front of a screen “playing” violent games where killing is the main focus of a game, numbing them even more to the value of human beings.

Guns, Thank God, are part of American culture, and a means to protect one’s property, self, or family. They are also there to protect ourselves from a tyrannical government. Weapons, however, that are used to murder and injure others can be anything from a gun to something as simple as a belt used to strangle someone. It is not the weapon that kills all on it own, it is a person deciding to take a life for some implied slight, because a child would ruin their plans, or because someone has gone mentally ill.

It is the failure to teach our children that human beings are valuable that worries me the most. Are we a raising generation of people who are so selfish and self absorbed that they cannot see the value in others? Are our children remaining childishly concerned about only themselves? Do they find the suffering of others unimportant, and will they simply ignore the loss of life because it isn’t happening to someone they know? Do they know how to love others? Or are we raising a bunch of pack animals who only bond together to mate, commit violence against other packs, and keep their numbers under control by killing off the weakest of the children?

It worries me that so many kids today, and in many cases, their parents, have no manners, no sense of a moral boundary, and no understanding of the value of human life. Our information sources, books, entertainment, and education makes it clear that human beings are the scourge of the earth. Except, naturally, their generation. They are so self absorbed that many of them simply do not recognize they are no different than the kid standing next to them. They are both humans. They are both valuable. They are our future, God help us.