Director, Commonwealth Policy Center

Our hearts go out to the victims of senseless violence.  We bristle at the cruelty of the perpetrators, and we desperately search for a solution and safety for our own loved ones.  But how?  How do we ensure such safety.

As congress debates gun control, the Department for Homeland Security amasses ammunition and armored vehicles, and the nation examines our immigration policy – is there a silver bullet capable of providing the safety we crave?  I for one am unconvinced that any government action can or will provide a satisfying solution. That's not to say that Government doesn't have a vital role to play. We should be vigilantly concerned with its actions.  But, at the end of the day, there is only so much that any government can do.

Way back in 1789, John Adams aptly said, "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion . . . Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."  The true root of our problem, exists in an ever growing segment of our nation that has lost its ability to discern between right and wrong.  Listening to an old Steven Curtis Chapman song earlier this week, the late Chuck Colson's introduction struck home.  He asked, "Where is the hope?"  And then answered his own question with these timely words of wisdom. He said, " The hope that each of us has, is not in who governs us or what laws are passed, or what great things we do as a nation.  Our hope is in the power of God working through the hearts of people, and that's where our hope is in this country. That's where our hope is in life."