Another Inconvenient Truth
Guess our national leaders didn’t expect this, hmm? On Thursday, Darrell Scott, the father of Rachel Scott, a victim of the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado, was invited to address the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee. What he said to our national leaders during this special session of Congress was painfully truthful.
They were not prepared for what he was to say, nor was it received well. It needs to be heard by every parent, every teacher, every politician, every sociologist, every psychologist, and every so-called expert. These courageous words spoken by Darrell Scott are powerful, penetrating, and deeply personal. There is no doubt that God sent this man as a voice crying out in the wilderness. Following is a portion of the transcript:
“Since the dawn of creation, there have been both good and evil in the hearts of men and women. We all contain the seeds of kindness and the seeds of violence. The death of my wonderful daughter, Rachel Joy Scott, and the deaths of that heroic teacher and the other eleven children who died must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers.
“The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel out in the field. The villain was not the club he used. Neither was it the NCA — the National Club Association. The true killer was Cain, and the reason for the murder could only be found in Cain ‘s heart.
“In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am not a member of the NRA. I am not a hunter. I do not even own a gun. I am not here to represent or defend the NRA, because I don’t believe they are responsible for my daughter’s death. Therefore, I do not believe that they need to be defended. If I believed they had anything to do with Rachel ‘s murder, I would be their strongest opponent.
“I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a tragedy, it was a spiritual event that should be forcing us to look at where the real blame lies. Much of the blame lies here in this room. Much of the blame lies behind the pointing fingers of the accusers themselves. I wrote a poem just four nights ago that expresses my feelings best.
Your laws ignore our deepest needs,
Your words are empty air.
You’ve stripped away our heritage,
You’ve outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms,
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere,
And ask the question “Why?”
You regulate restrictive laws,
Through legislative creed.
And yet you fail to understand,
That God is what we need!
“Men and women are three-part beings. We all consist of body, mind, and spirit. When we refuse to acknowledge a third part of our make-up, we create a void that allows evil, prejudice, and hatred to rush in and wreak havoc. Spiritual presences were present within our educational systems for most of our nation’s history. Many of our major colleges began as theological seminaries. This is a historical fact.
“What has happened to us as a nation? We have refused to honor God, and, in so doing, we have opened the doors to hatred and violence. And when something as terrible as Columbine’s tragedy occurs, politicians immediately look for a scapegoat such as the NRA. They immediately seek to pass more restrictive laws that erode away our personal and private liberties.
“We do not need more restrictive laws. Eric and Dylan would not have been stopped by metal detectors. No amount of gun laws can stop someone who spends months planning this type of massacre. The real villain lies within our own hearts.
“As my son Craig lay under that table in the school library and saw his two friends murdered before his very eyes, he did not hesitate to pray in school. I defy any law or politician to deny him that right. I challenge every young person in America, and around the world, to realize that on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School, prayer was brought back to our schools.
“Do not let the many prayers offered by those students be in vain. Dare to move into the new millennium with a sacred disregard for legislation that violates your God-given right to communicate with Him. To those of you who would point your finger at the NRA, I give to you a sincere challenge: Dare to examine your own hearts before casting the first stone.
“My daughter’s death will not be in vain. The young people of this country will not allow that to happen.”
Do what the media did not do. Let the nation hear this man’s speech. Please send this out to everyone you can. God Bless. – David Altschul
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Copyright © 2012 Robert Ringer
ROBERT RINGER is a New York Times #1 bestselling author and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. He has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, The Tonight Show, Today, The Dennis Miller Show, Good Morning America, The Lars Larson Show, ABC Nightline, and The Charlie Rose Show, and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron's, and The New York Times.
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Dear Robert,
The blame game, finger pointing, pass the buck mentality in this country has to stop right now.
The Columbine issue has nothing to do with prayer in schools, the Government, the NRA or other lawmakers. It has everything to do with Eric and Dylan and the insanity that went on in their minds that no laws or
prayers could have prevented.
This issue is really only about one thing and that is responsibility. Everyone (with a sound mind) and who is old enough to understand is 100% responsible for his actions. There is no second option.
Yet no one seems to get that. It’s always someone else’s fault.
When it comes to organized religion, more killings and more wars have been done in the name of God than anything else I am aware of. That’s not God’s fault. The responsibility is on the people who believe that what they are doing is in the name of God. It’s not the religious leaders fault either. People do have the ability to think for themselves. I believe that’s not outlawed yet.
I don’t know if the families of Eric and Dylan were religious, but if they were, where does the blame go then? It goes exactly where it is supposed to go. It goes to the perpetrators, Eric and Dylan. If their families weren’t religious, the responsibility still goes to Eric and Dylan.
We as a society, have to start to take 100% responsibility for all of our actions and start to think for ourselves and stop begging the Government for help. If we don’t do that immediately, I am deeply concerned and frightened to think about what this great country will become.
Darshan S.
Albuquerque, NM
Thanks for sharing this again. We all need to revisit history now and then — even though painful. Unfortunately, the very ones who need to hear this turn a deaf ear. Isn’t it strange that our lawmakers have become so arrogant that they no longer feel they need to listen to us. I wish more folks would respond to this attitude with an appropriate “no-vote” to all encumbants on election days. And, while we might blame only the lawmakers, it is also the people’s complacency and ignorance of the facts that ultimately are to blame. God, please help us.
No individual is denied the right to pray to whatever God that individual believes in, at school or anywhere else. Teachers, students, custodians, parents and ordinary citiazens all have that right.
What is not allowed is third parties, be it school administrators, teachers, parents, student groups, or any others, to force their prayers on students. No students should be subjected to the explicit message that they must conform to the prayer norms advocated by some other person.
Prayer is an internal family value, and must not be subject to contamination or interference from other people’s religious values. Jewish and Islamic kids should not be forced to participate in Christian prayers, nor in any activity that implies that one religion is the norm and others are the exception.
Attempting to use the tragedy at Columbine as a basis for an effort to undermine the separation of church and state is unfortunate.
Liberals aren’t interested in what this man has to say or the truth. They have made up their minds a long time ago to take both prayers and guns away. Once that is done only that state has control. It has happened before in history and Liberals are hoping it will again.
The only thing I heard when the media discusses the anniversary of Columbine was the one person present called for tougher gun legislation, of course they wouldn’t mention this guy. That is outside the agenda.
Research has determined that from the Moment of Commitment (the point when a student pulls their weapon) to the Moment of Completion (when the last round is fired) is only 5 seconds. If it is the intent of a school district to react to this violence, they will do so over the wounded and/or slain bodies of students, teachers and administrators.
Educational institutions clearly want safe and secure schools. Administrators are perennially queried by parents about the safety of their schools. The commonplace answers, intended to reassure anxious parents, focus on the school resource officers and emergency procedures. While useful, these less than adequate efforts do not begin to provide a definitive answer to preventing school violence, nor do they make a school safe and secure.
Traditionally school districts have relied upon the mental health community or local police to keep schools safe, yet one of the key shortcomings has been the lack of a system that involves teachers, administrators, parents and students in the identification and communication process. Recently, colleges, universities and community colleges are forming Behavioral Intervention Teams with representatives from all these constituencies. Higher Education has changed their safety/security policies, procedures, or surveillance systems, yet K-12 have yet to incorporate Behavioral Intervention Teams. K-12 schools continue spending excessive amounts of money to put in place many of the physical security options. Sadly, they are reactionary only and do little to prevent aggression because they are designed exclusively to react to existing conflict, threat and violence. These schools reflect a national blindspot, which prefers hardening targets through enhanced security versus preventing violence with efforts directed at aggressors. Security gets all the focus and money, but this only makes us feel safe, rather than to actually make us safer.
Some law enforcement agencies use profiling as a means to identify an aggressor. According to the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Department of Education’s report on Targeted Violence in Schools, there is a significant difference between “profiling” and identifying and measuring emerging aggression; “The use of profiles is not effective either for identifying students who may pose a risk for targeted violence at school or – once a student has been identified – for assessing the risk that a particular student may pose for school-based targeted violence.” It continues; “An inquiry should focus instead on a student’s behaviors and communications to determine if the student appears to be planning or preparing for an attack.” We can and must assess objective, culturally neutral, identifiable criteria of emerging aggression.
For a comprehensive look at the problem and its solution, http://www.aggressionmanagement.com/White_Paper_K-12/
Continue the dialogue: http://aggressionmanagement.blogspot.com/
It’s a shame.
Self-accountability continues on the downhill slide in this country.
When someone can actually get paid for spilling hot coffee on their lap…blaming the restaurant that served them instead of themselves first…well, it’s just sad.