VIRGINIA TECH SHOOTING

At last report, 32 students are dead and 22 more have been wounded by a gun wielding nut, making this the most deadly mass shooting in America, a country known for both nuts and guns.

And no doubt, political pundits will wage war over gun control in the coming months. They always do following a tragedy. Network newscasters will parade a host of experts whose opinions will cancel each other out and the debate, while cathartic, will end in a stalemate; the chess pieces will be put up and the talking heads will turn to other topics until the next mass shooting.

But they miss the point. Gun control is not the problem. What we have is a people problem. A pistol, sitting in a drawer, or on top of a table for that matter, harms no one. The gun is not dangerous until picked up, until it's in the hand of someone bent on carnage.

More people are prone to commit violence these days. When I was in grade school, the older students left rifles and shotguns resting on gun racks in the cab of their trucks. And they didn't even lock their doors. Forth graders carried pocket knives. To us, guns and knives were tools, and nothing more.

But this was before our national divorce rate was over fifty percent. And it was before the term 'latch-key kids' was coined. And back then we prayed in class. And we said the Pledge of allegiance each morning in front of the flag. And we sat down to supper as a family and we talked about our day. We knew all our neighbors. And come Sunday morning, we sat in God's house, took in the sermon and sang hymns.