#217 To Control Guns or Not to Control Guns? -- This is NOT the (Right) Question

The EXTRAORDINARY Family Life Podcast

In our podcast episodes, we like to answer questions we’re asked or to discuss topics that impact — or fire — us up. Lately, we’ve been discussing together the most recent school shooting in the United States (and the resulting usual public discussion about the need for gun control).

As American citizens, we also have a unique viewpoint because of the near decade or more we’ve spent living outside of the United States (in more than 50 countries). It’s allowed us to gain a unique perspective of the problems plaguing nations — and to compare and contrast their similarities and differences.

School shootings are an almost uniquely U.S. problem. While violence and terrorism do occur in other countries — including genocide — a single shooter whose goal is to take out innocent lives (children) is a crime that is nearly exclusive to the United States.

What’s going on here? Why is it happening?

Of course, it makes complete logical sense at first glance to blame it on the guns. We did about nine years ago while living in Costa Rica — a country with no military and no guns. But as we’ve thought, discussed, analyzed, and researched further, we’ve come to believe that the problem — and solution — may include more gun control, but it's also far more complex than that. There is an "underlying cause to the underlying cause" of the problem, and until it's resolved things won't change -- even if all guns were magically removed from the nation.

Whether you're pro-2nd Amendment or pro-gun control, listen now to this interesting episode to add awareness and understanding to your viewpoint — a key step in having healthy dialogue and debate which are absolutely essential for creating change.

And perhaps gain insight into how each of us individually has contributed to the instability and terrifying challenges facing our nations and communities. Because as Alexander Solzhenitsyn, author of the Gulag Archipelago said:

“A society with unlimited rights is incapable of standing to adversity… A stable society is achieved not by balancing opposing forces but by conscious self-limitation [responsibility].”

Listen now!

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