The tragedy at the Connecticut school stunned our nation…and rightly so!  Media pundits claim   the real problem is the presence of too many guns in America.  Weapons inappropriately used by deranged persons reflect a much deeper problem than misuse of the Second Amendment.

A more reasonable cause is father-absent homes, which now represent 50 percent of American families.  That cohort of youth forms the majority of the penitentiary population and most school dropouts.  A great number of children diagnosed with depression, bitterness, ADD, and anger are the consequences of fatherlessness. Fortunately, many single-parent mothers compensate admirably for absentee husbands/fathers.

Nevertheless, we can speculate that the distraught son perceived that his mother may have been the primary cause of the broken marriage, and the subsequent absence of the boy’s father.  Moreover, the shooter may have believed that his mother cared more for other children than she cared for her own son and the boy’s father. If such conditions were the motive, the public can glimpse why the boy killed his mother and other children.  The above reasonable speculation is not currently based upon known facts.  However, the concept is more plausible than the idea that mass murders would not occur if Congress were to ban guns. The banning of guns will not solve the cultural plague of father-absent homes!

Ronald E.Johnson, C.Ph.D.

Zephyr, Texas