As expected, liberal lawmakers and Hollywood celebrities are using the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy as an opportunity to advocate legislation banning private ownership of certain types of weapons.

It’s no different than their using recurring natural disasters, like Hurricane Sandy, to push global-warming tax initiatives that further erode our freedoms and pocketbooks. I understand their passion, but I disagree with their approach. Guns aren’t the problem; the people who pull the trigger are. Spontaneous acts of terror might be briefly deterred but they cannot be prevented.

Everything the government does to address violence is reactionary and fails to focus on the tougher, underlying causes. If a person has evil intent, he will find a way to achieve his goal as demonstrated by acts committed by the Islamic terrorists. It is foolish to think otherwise.

If a mentally unstable person decides to harm others, do you really believe denying him access to any type of firearm will make a difference? If he fails to purchase or steal a legal handgun or rifle, it is fairly easy to purchase deadly weapons on the black market including one of the thousands of assault rifles Eric Holder sent to Mexican drug cartels.

Any person can use readily available household materials to make bombs. Even ball-point pens, pencils or scissors have been used to kill people. If assault weapons are banned by the government what’s next — baseball bats? Once it gets started, where does such madness end?

As statistics prove, disarming citizens only results in increased violent crimes committed by emboldened lawbreakers. Adam Lanza felt safe attacking an elementary school in Connecticut knowing there were no guns allowed for defenders to use against him. The same was true of the allegedly deranged assailant, James Holmes, in the Aurora, Colo., movie theater massacre.

When I went to public school, there were mentally unstable people in every community just as there are today, and there were a lot of privately owned hunting rifles, shotguns and handguns in people’s homes. So what was different between then and now? That is the question that should be asked as therein lies the answer as to how to prevent another Sandy Hook tragedy, not taking away the guns American citizens rely on to protect themselves and their families.

Let me repeat myself as therein lies the crux to the problem: The private ownership of guns hasn’t changed much in the past 50 years but people’s attitudes, spiritual beliefs and values have changed a lot.

Consider these differences:

1) People respected the law enforcement agencies 50 years ago. Verbally or physically assaulting police officers was almost unheard of. Today, law enforcement is often portrayed by Hollywood and by the news media as corrupt, head-bashing storm troopers that deserve retribution.

2) Years ago, kids who had difficulties fitting in either learned from their parents, teachers or church leaders how to deal with their inadequate social skills or were tested and treated if the manifestations of a mental disorder were severe.

A person taking their angst, jealousy, envy or rage out on other students or teachers with the type of violence we see today was an act that nobody would condone and certainly not encourage. However today, through social media, socially deviant people can find and encourage each other rather than seek proper treatment for their problems.

James Holmes, the accused Colorado movie theatre shooter, emulated the Batman movies’ satanic character, the Joker. Now we discover that Adam Lanza was a satanic worshiper also. But we are cautioned by the politically correct establishment that making a point of a visibly disturbed individual’s bad behavior might hurt their feelings and thus we must accept everyone as they are despite their obvious faults.

3) The disappearance of religious convictions, especially by young people, brings with it a loss of moral and ethical taboos and personal responsibility. Instead of a quest to remove religious messages like the Ten Commandments from public view, bureaucrats should be commending the virtues of such sacred words. It worked for the first 200 years of our nation.

Perhaps, if Adam Lanza and James Holmes had worshipped God instead of Satan, their victims would still be alive today.

4) Modern entertainment often has violent and anti-social undertones which are proven to have an adverse affect on younger audiences and yet nothing is done about it. James Holmes truly believed he was ‘the Joker’ fictional character when he went into that Colorado movie theater.

5) Fear of being sentenced to death deterred many would-be murderers back in my day. However, Adam Lanza knew the worst he would face after committing his despicable act in Connecticut was life in prison. And the more people he shot, the more heinous the crime, then the more international notoriety he would receive to satisfy his sadistic lust. If he hadn’t committed suicide, he may have also coveted lucrative book deals.

Until social attitudes change, then you can expect tragedies like Sandy Hook to become more commonplace rather than rare exceptions regardless of what is done about gun ownership.

We are devolving rapidly into a Godless society. Judeo-Christian beliefs are being replaced by Satanic cults, sorcery, mysticism and other anti-religious groups. Murder and mayhem are a normal fact of life for such Godless cultures.

It behooves everyone to insist on an intelligent approach to dealing with the problems of violence and terrorism rather than allowing politicians to use human tragedies as leverage to push agendas that threaten our freedoms.

John Merlette is a resident of Bigfork.