There are so many issues that seem to be dividing us across the country. I certainly can’t tackle all of them in this short column, but let me try to hit a couple; “gun violence” and drug addiction. These two issues seem to cross paths, especially in our poor, inner-city neighborhoods.

My wife and I spent 40 years working with young people and adults with what we called “life-controlling” addictions. The men and women who came through our doors were broken, empty, and hopeless. Hopelessness is when today doesn’t look any different than yesterday and tomorrow doesn’t look any different than today. When you have no hope, you often lose the desire to continue on in this life.

I would often tell our residents that prior to coming to our program they thought they had an addiction problem; in reality they had a heart problem. Their addiction problem was the outward symptom of a much deeper problem, the problem of the heart. It’s a reality that hurting people hurt other people.

In poor, inner-city neighborhoods there is an epidemic of fatherless children. These children grow up to become angry teenagers that are vulnerable to the influence of gangs. The gangs offer something they did not have before — a sense of belonging and family. Strong families with both parents make strong communities that make a strong nation. We ignore that to our detriment.

So-called “gun violence” is actually human violence. It’s the overflowing result of these young people turning to gangs for the sense of family, only to find that “family” filled with other soulless people just like themselves. To these gangs, life has no value and taking the life of another to pass a gang initiation or punish someone outside the gang is no big deal.

The leftists who want to take away guns so we can be safe are either self-deluded or outright liars. Modern history has enough examples of dictators who came to power only after disarming their citizens. That should give us pause in implementing such a policy. Apparently they don’t teach why the first battle of the Revolutionary War at Lexington & Concord was fought. It was because the British wanted their subjects unarmed and unable to defend their freedoms. Leftists are being disingenuous in saying they only want to make us safe.

The fact of the matter is, the Left has been working for over 50 years now to bring about the collapse of the family, knowing it would bring about the moral collapse of the nation. If it were not true, why have they gone to such great lengths to re-write history and change the past?

They have been playing the long game for years, especially in dumbing down our education system to the point where feelings are more important than facts. It’s time for us to wake up to this deception or we will suffer the fate of every other society that crumbled from within.

Something to think about?