Mass Shootings and the Fall of Society

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

And we need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul Podcast. You know, I cannot imagine what it would feel like to lose a daughter, a son, a father, a mother, a loved one to murder. And over the past week, with what happened in Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas, I've seen a range of emotions out there. You know, some people, they've responded with anger.

Others, well, responded with prayer. And both sides have mocked each other. And they've mocked each other to no end to achieve political positioning. Now, I'm no sage. I'm nobody who has all the answers.

But when I heard about these awful, awful events, a bible verse did come to mind. It's from Proverbs Proverbs 29:15-18. The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. When the wicked are multiplied, transgression increaseth, but the righteous shall see their fall. Correct thy son, and he shall give thee rest.

Yea, he shall give delight unto thy soul. Where there is no vision, the people perish but he that keepeth the law, happy is he. You know, like I said, I am no sage, and I don't know about what to do about these events, this common happening here in The United States any better than the next person. But what I can say is this, if you think that a piece of legislation is going to fix this, Your head is in the ground. And people get really emotional about this.

People get very angry about this, and you're free to disagree with me or not. But the truth is this. There's over 300,000,000 firearms here in The United States. Most of them owned by very good people who would never in a million years think to do something like that which occurred in El Paso and Dayton and so many other places here in The United States. And I'm not saying that because I believe that I can change your mind.

I'm telling you that because we have to look at the reality here. If we look at what happened in Australia, they put forth a firearms ban after a massacre that occurred in Tasmania. I believe they had close to 1,500,000 firearms in their country at the time. At most, they were able to collect about 700,000. Right?

The remaining firearms are either lost on record, supposedly, or, you know, they just weren't turned in. And if you look at the reality of things here in The United States, most experts agree that at most at most, if you had a buyback and you had a drive to take in and destroy all of these firearms, you'd probably get at most about a 100,000,000, if that. And what I can tell you is that there'd be a lot of these firearms that were lost on record, and that there would also be a lot of good people who would be put into the target of the law. And the reason why I'm, again, telling you that is is to base this in reality. Right?

If you think that a firearms ban is going to solve this problem, well, even if there is a firearms ban, we have to talk about other solutions. We do. Even if you're successful in in trying to get all of these weapons banned, even if you're successful in trying to create better background checks, even if you're successful in and I'm not arguing against background checks or anything like that. I'm just telling you the reality. Even if you're successful with every single one of these pieces of legislation, you're not gonna solve the problem.

So what is a potential solution? Well, what I would say and what I think we all have to unify on, regardless of what our political beliefs are, regardless of whether or not you hate the president of The United States or whether or not you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent, what I think we really need to do a better job on is in understanding the environment that our children are growing up in. Understanding the fact that if you're going to tear down the moral fabric of society, and you are going to have an environment like that which so many children are growing up in these days, then you cannot expect chaos not to ensue. And the other aspect of this is that we have to open up our eyes about how many people really are getting killed every day. Neil deGrasse Tyson got skewered the other day over a tweet he put out regarding the data on how many people get killed every day for a number of different reasons.

One of them was handguns. Right? Forty people die of wounds from handguns every single day. That's forty people from cities around The United States, many of which never get published. And in many of these cities, guns are already illegal.

So again, what I would say is that if we want to come up with a real solution, we need to talk about these problems with eyes wide open, staring at every single horrible statistic and understanding the truth. And the truth is that this is something that can't be fixed by the government. This is something that can't be fixed by legislation. And the people who are responsible for this are not some politician, and trust me, I do not like politicians. It's all of us.

It's me. It's you. It's your neighbor. It's every single one of us. And when I'm talking about tearing down the moral fabric of society, I'm not talking about being super pious or imposing some belief system on anybody.

And nor am I pointing the finger at any particular group at all. Again, every single one of us is to blame. When our kids are being raised by the internet, when we start to treat mental illness like a stigma, people aren't getting the treatment that they need, when we toss values aside, like the rules just meant to be broken, you can expect that chaos is going to be afoot. And so, I guess what I'm trying to say is this, If you really want to fight this, and you really want a solution, regardless of what happens with gun control, because honestly, I don't know what's gonna happen, You have to understand that we all need to take part by raising our kids with real values, teaching them right from wrong, helping them to understand the value of human life. We have to take an active role in their lives.

We can't just hand them a game, or an iPhone, or a computer, and expect that they're going to be okay. We've got to talk with them. We've to take an interest in them. We've got to really try to push and encourage them to take the right path in life. We've got to examine the way we treat mental health in this country.

Like I said, it's a stigma. When somebody is said to have a mental illness, we ostracize them. We need to talk about how we treat people with mental illnesses in this country. We need to make sure they're getting the care they need. And we need to make sure that they're not casted out of society.

I think above all, when we see our communities faltering, when we see our leaders not doing the jobs that they're supposed to be doing, What we need to be doing is picking up the slack. We need to step up as leaders. And I'm saying this to you out here, because most of you are within the veteran community. And most of you know how to lead, that it's time. It's time for a lot of you to start picking up the slack.

It's time for a lot of you to come back and to once again put on the leader hat. You are a community that understands values. You understand honor. And you understand that the only way we're gonna get through any of this is together. Not by fighting over one thing or another, not by pointing the finger, but by actually taking action to ensure that we as citizens live up to the greatness that this country supposedly represents.

You know, the media is going to say everything it wants to say, and the politicians are going to bicker back and forth. But at the end of the day, like I said, an answer to this can't be legislated. It's got to fall upon us. And as citizens, it's our duty to do so. And now, as informed citizens, it's our duty to take some action.

Start with the little things. Start with your own family. Then move on to your neighborhood. And from there, start to look at your city. See what you can do.

There is definitely something. An opportunity to coach, an opportunity to volunteer, an opportunity to lead. And I'm telling you this because I know it's something you can do. And that's all I got for today. This wasn't an easy podcast to put together.

I don't often talk about political issues. But there comes a time when you just can't be silent, and you've gotta express your opinion. And, what I said today makes some sense to all of you. And hopefully, it turns your gears about things that you can do to start to try to be able to fix this problem. I want to thank you all for listening.

For those of you who haven't been here before, this is the Warrior Soul Podcast, and my name is Chris Albert. I started this podcast to help US military veterans to come in contact with tools, tactics, ideas, strategies to live their best lives. I'm not always talking about political issues here. Normally, I am talking about some sort of actionable thing that our audience can do to improve upon themselves, to make themselves stronger, to make themselves smarter, to make themselves better. And I'm also quite often talking to somebody who's a lot smarter than I am.

So whether you're a veteran or not, stick around. Everything that we talk about here could apply to anybody. And all we ask in return is that if you like what I have to say, if you think that what I have to say can help people out, head over to iTunes and write us a written review. It really helps to spread word about the show. And aside from the podcast here, we're also running some free communities right now.

We've got the Warrior Soul Fitness Academy, and that's where I'm putting information out about shows each week. I'm posting up workouts and I'm going to be starting to post up books that you guys should take a look at. Books that have something to offer you in your quest to live the life that you want to live. And beyond that, I just want to say that this show would not be possible without the good people at F Bomb Nutrition. Really awesome people, they make delicious nut butters, macadamia nut butters, mix them up with coconut butter, with sea salt, with beet ham butter.

They've also got a lot of really awesome snacks. They've got these cheese crisps that they make, and now they've just made some meat sticks. They're really awesome, all these snacks are super portable, and they're sending a lot of this stuff overseas to the troops frontlines to supplement their MREs. That's about it. Everything I just talked about will be up on the show notes for this episode over at www.warriorsoulagoge.com.

Thank you guys so much for listening, and I'll be talking to you soon in another episode.