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By Doug Collins

One Man's Opinion

COLLINS: What goes around comes around

Jul 10, 2022 | 6:40 AM

I WAS GOING through some old pocketbooks the other day, and came across a collection of tales about the old West. Most of them were written by Louis L’Amour.

When I was younger, I collected L’Amour’s novels, along with novels by other writers like Max Brand and Zane Grey.

The history revealed in those books painted a culture of lawlessness, outlaw gangs, death, and pillaging – in short, a pretty scary time.

But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered how different that was from today.

The lawlessness surrounding the gang wars, the chance of being caught up in a gang shootout, which happens more and more in public, the horrifying violence of people going into a school with an assault rifle and randomly killing innocent children, a person who climbs a ladder and starts shooting at people indiscriminately.

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And these are just the most heinous crimes. Too many more to even count.

The past ten years have seen an increasing number of violent crimes. While we tend to describe the assailants as having mental issues of some kind, I don’t.buy that as a cause of all the violence.

There are many other issues as well. Increasing rage, the ease with which people can purchase assault rifles, the lack of respect for others, all are factors.

All of these really point to a breakdown of a civil society.

I am not sure what it will take to fix. Are there any lessons that we can take away from history?

Maybe.

Over time, we eventually moved from the Wild West to a more civilized society. Can we do it again?

I believe so, but it will take a take a lot more effort than it took in the 1860’s. And I honestly don’t know if we have the persistence to make it happen.

I would like to think we can move through this dark time to something better. But the signs are not currently pointing in that direction.

I’m Doug Collins and that’s One Man’s Opinion.