Dennis Prager argues that mass shootings stem from social decay—rising rates of single men, declining marriage and church participation, and cultural chaos—rather than gun availability or mental illness alone. He cites George Gilder's research on marital status and contends that the Bible mandates capital punishment for premeditated murder, contrasting that with modern societies that keep murderers alive.
A man who's— is he still on the loose? Is that the latest? Mm-hmm. They know who he is and murdered 18 people. Injured— I don't like wounded. Wounded is, you know, sounds too mild. 22. Excuse me, 18. It was originally— I read 22. Human being murdered 18 people randomly. Are there any gun laws that would have stopped him? That's— I always ask that when people immediately go to guns. They say he's mentally ill. He was in a mental institution until recently. I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. I hate that because I really like to tell you. I like to explain life. I like to give you theories that are plausible. Is there, is there some uptick in mental illness in this country? If so, why? Is it the processed food they're eating? I doubt it. And within mental illness, how many mentally ill people yearn to murder as many people as possible? Do they know it's wrong? Does mental illness preclude you from knowing that it is wrong? If this guy, whom I would personally execute if the call came out for volunteers to execute a person, I would volunteer. I passionately, rationally, morally believe in capital punishment for murder. A society that treats murderers gently is a society that has lost its ability to be shocked by the worst crime— murder. I just finished, literally last night, I finished the fourth of the five book commentary on the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, my Rational Bible. Now it goes to editor after editor after editor so that the there is not even a hope— not often there's no hope, not even a chance, although that still is not perfect— of any errors. And there is a law that if you kill somebody— now, obviously, if you kill somebody premeditatedly, You're put to death. It's the only law in all 5 books of the Bible. But what does the Bible know, huh? We're, we're much wiser. We keep all murderers alive and think we're moral giants for doing so. I don't. Anyway, if you killed somebody and it was any at all negligent, you went to a city of refuge. So that would be a good example of the drunk driver. Negligence wasn't deliberate, it wasn't premeditated, didn't even know his victims or her victims, but still something terrible happened. Innocent human beings were killed. Stalin is supposedly the person who said, "One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic." Everybody— one thing that I think unites left and right, and almost nothing unites left and right, is horror at this mass shooting, but we have different reactions. Guns is the primary reaction on the left. I don't know why he did it. It is obvious if he were mentally ill to the point of where we could relate to understanding the term, he, he wouldn't be fleeing. I— it's an odd thing. You're mentally ill enough to murder men, women, and children in a bowling— was it a bowling alley? But you're, you're not that mentally ill that you figure out how to at least for days, evade the police. So there's some degree of our choosing what mental illness is. See, I don't know that murdering people is wrong, but I do know that I don't want to get caught. Okay, then let's look. It's possible. And again, I asked, why is there an uptick in mental illness? I'll tell you what there is an uptick in, and I think it is related to the number of mass shootings, but it may not be. I, I just offer this for conjecture. This is a society that is embracing chaos, so the mentally fragile in a chaotic society will act chaotically. Did this man have any social bond? Was he married? Do you know? Do we know? There's no mention of a wife, right? Right. George Gilder, in a book that I've been actually advertising recently— what is the new title? Men in Marriage. Yeah, so I read it in high school, the original edition, Sexual Suicide and Naked Nomads, two different books. And he pointed out, he said, the thing, the one thing that murderers virtually all have in common is that they're single, that they're male and they're single. The largest percentage of men and women at age 40 that have never been— who have never been married are living in America today. The largest percentage ever recorded of never married. Think that's a factor? Think never church is a factor? Or is it all mental illness? People were not mentally ill in the 1930s and '40s. You know that people were happier? I was— I read this to you, the data. There was less suicide and less depression during the Depression than today. Because people had bonds. There was no chaos reigning around them in their lives. This chaos— the left creates chaos. It loves it because their inner life and conscience are chaotic. So chaos breeds chaos. That's my take. Mental illness alone just— it doesn't do it for me. Maybe it is. I'd like to know if the man was on any medicines, and I'm not against psychiatric drugs. I'm also less inclined to think that they have no ill effects. Than I once was. Well, it's certainly not the ubiquity of guns. They— guns were available to Americans in the early part of the 20th century, and there was so little of this. My heart breaks for these people. I know that many of you differ with me. I believe God made a world in which randomness, or luck if you will, does play a role. I don't think God chose every one of those 18 to die. If you don't believe there's any luck in life, that's your belief. I respect you. I I find the belief untenable. I believe there's an afterlife where things are worked out in some divine justice. But as far as this life is concerned, those poor souls were, as they say, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Life, Legacy, and a Dangerous Mission in the Soviet Union | Sunday Fireside Chat
