Want to stop the violence? Change the culture

There were several comments posted to our website Monday about the shooting incident which claimed the lives of two young men over the weekend. Unfortunately, the posters didn’t follow our rules and didn’t include their names on their posts, so we could not approve them for publication on the website, but the gist of most posts was: "How very sad! Gonzales used to be a safe town. Now we’re like a ghetto with shootings and stabbings all over!"

On the one hand, they’re right: violent crime used to be unheard of in small Texas towns; there were incidents, but they were so few and far between that an incident like this reverberated for months.

On the other hand, Gonzales really isn’t any different from a lot of other small towns around the state and the country: violent crime has become more commonplace.

It’s not a matter of the town being a "ghetto," however. If anything, Gonzales is being revitalized economically and is taking steps to reverse that image of "decay" that so many people associate with violent crime.

It is instead our decayed culture which is at fault. We have, as a society, come to accept the violence — and in many cases, we celebrate it.

Certainly our entertainment media has helped to desensitize the population to the horrors of real life with the gratuitous violence displayed on television and in the movies. The film-makers say all the blood and gore is portraying "realism" — but that’s untrue.

In the movies, the Bad Guys always learn their lesson when The Hero beats them up. But here in the real world, the Bad Guys lick their wounds for a few days, then come back and shoot at you while you’re in your car with your kids.

It’s gotten worse in recent years, thanks to another entertainment genre. Much of what passes for "popular music" these days celebrates and glorifies crime, violence, vulgarity, sexism, racism and drug use — and you parents out there tacitly approve of it because you buy it for your kids!

The vile nature of "gangsta rap" has transcended being merely annoying noise and now influences fashion. The haute-couture look of having your pants "sag" below your butt came from the Los Angeles County Jail, where an abundance of inmates and a shortage of jail uniforms led to many prisoners walking around having to hold their pants up because they were too big.

Those who are "sagging" are proudly telling the world, "Hey! I’ve been in jail, and I’m proud of it!"

You’d think that parents would feel a sense of duty to teach their kids that being a criminal and going to jail is a disgraceful thing. Yet you can walk around town — any town — and see toddlers, children and young teens dragging along with their britches falling down, because their parents bought those clothes for them.

I’ve seen grown adults who are otherwise responsible, caring individuals dressed like they were raised in the Crips or the Bloods. What example are you setting for your kids?

There are those out there who think the way to stop the violence is to make gun ownership illegal. All that would do is to ensure that only criminals have guns, and would instead increase the violence — by assuring the criminals that their victims can’t defend themselves.

Murder was almost unheard of in Gonzales’ pioneer days— yet almost everyone owned one or more guns.

The problem is that we rationalize and enable criminal behavior. "He grew up in a bad environment," the enablers say. "He never had a chance."

That’s not a reason, that’s an excuse.

Ending the violence won’t be easy. The justice system isn’t stacked in our favor.

Every year, legislators weaken penalties, bleeding-heart judges accept the most trivial of excuses to set thugs free, prosecutors accept easy plea bargains rather than fighting for a full conviction to keep their "win" record high, and conscienceless defense lawyers make a mockery of our justice system.

If you want the violence to stop, don’t tolerate the culture which produces it.

Don’t dress your kid like a thug and it’s less likely he’ll become one. Don’t buy that child the accoutrements of gang culture. Control that child’s access to entertainment media.

Don’t give the criminals the idea that they’re welcome. If some trunk-thumper parks in front of your business, call the police and report it, and refuse service to that vehicle’s occupants. It’s your right, not theirs.

We can’t depend on "the government" to stop the violence. We have to do it ourselves — by challenging and changing our culture.