Why so many young people are going off the rails
Even after the horrific Texas massacre, the principal cause remains the great unsayable
In America, an anguished debate continues about the implications of the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, where an 18 year-old boy murdered at least 19 children and two teachers in an elementary school by gunning them down.
This debate has been dominated by the argument between those who want to prevent the widespread availability of guns and those who claim that gun control is irrelevant, and that more attention should be paid to a moral sickness that has developed in American society.
To a British mind, it is almost incomprehensible that guns are available with so few security checks and can be obtained by people who are mentally disturbed or otherwise grossly unsuitable for gun ownership.
Surely, however, this is not a matter of either/or. It’s possible that something is going wrong with American society and that it is necessary to restrict the availability of guns.
There’s one particular aspect of current American culture which is arguably the most important factor of all but is rarely even mentioned. That is mass fatherlessness and the destruction of the traditional married family.
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