On Oct. 1 of this year, gunmen stormed the classrooms and facilities of Umpqua Community College and took the lives of nine students and faculty. As seems to be the sad, vicious cycle in recent politics, the issue of gun control is brought up, and both sides of the partisan battlefield duke it out over the sustaining the Second Amendment right and ending the violence in the United States.

So why do these debates continue? Why doesn’t serious national progress occur after the wake of these national tragedies? As a native Nutmegger (someone from Connecticut) who witnessed the horror of the Sandy Hook Massacre on the local news, I want nothing more than the lives of students and professionals protected from the fear of a rogue gunmen shattering their sense of safety. I don’t think that the root of the problem lies in the ownership of guns; it is the fostering of a culture of hate and violence in our popular culture and politics.

Politics only spur on the culture of a sense of “deadlock and ongoing” battle between the liberal and conservative populations in our country. How, as the greatest standing military power, can we not muster the political will to protect our citizens from gun violence?

The answer lies in the growing and divisive gap between Far Left and Far Right. This struggle between political parties has translated to not just political apathy but pure hate between different groups in society. The indoctrination of the masses by mass media and the sensationalizing of these issues, like gun control, lead for politicians and people of all walks of life to establish themselves in camps determined not to lose ground or “cave in” with the other side, the “dark side.”

As I said before, the culture of violence in our media and politics gives the impression to the youth saying that violence is a commonplace thing, that violence is tolerable. Television series and movies with gore and guns give a glamorous image of fighting and killing. One may question how this is all connected. But when you take the current trends in society with the decline of the practicing religious population in the United States, one can only assume that the decline can only signify a decline in moral and ethical reasoning.

The beginning of this trend we see now can be traced to social revolution in the 1960s. People began to turn away from organized religion and embraced a new method of ethical reasoning: secularism. Secularism to many is the solution to corrupt organized churches, a more progressive outlook than utilizing otherwise archaic knowledge. A person’s individuality and how they feel trumps established moral doctrine. This became mentality of the sexual revolution and, later on, provided the inspiration for the argument of pro-choice in terms of abortion.

I strongly believe, as with many of my fellow peers who make the trek down to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 22 of every year, that the Roe v. Wade decision severely undermined the position of the pro-life movement and those who supported the preservation of human life at all stages. In one moment, the Federal Government makes it legal and the right of the individual to have an abortion or termination of a pregnancy. According to Catholic theological and moral thought, life begins at the moment of conception, thus making the fetus in a woman’s womb a living being. This is not only backed up by social science; it is backed up scientifically that life begins at the moment of conception. To sum up, to legally accept that terminating the life of an unborn life only adds to the culture of accepting and validating the treatment of human life.

And where do the political parties stand on these issues? Conservatives claim to be in the support of human life at all stages, but doesn’t it raise an eyebrow to being in support of unrestricted gun ownership and the death penalty toward convicted criminals? That doesn’t sound like protecting life at all stages. How can a party claim to be pro-life when millions of dollars are poured in from pro-gun lobbies to support election bids of many Republican and conservative lawmakers? The contributions of the NRA (National Rifle Association) have to power to not only influence policy but also determine the fate of elections in the post-Citizens United decision. How can this set the image of a party claiming to be the defender of the voiceless victim of the Roe v. Wade decision? Answer: quite the contrary.

When it came to this hypocrisy, Trevor Noah hit the nail on the head:

The inverse can be said about the democratic side. The Democrats believe in stricter gun control in the wake of mass shootings like the ones in Oregon and Sandy Hook, but they were the party during the Roe v. Wade that capitalized on the disorganization of the pro-life movement at the time the decision was handed down. The Democrats are the one that claim that a woman’s right to choose to get an abortion trumps the life of the unborn, as seen in the development of Planned Parenthood and the recent controversy.

Thus, the political parties that dominate U.S. politics are not sound in their defense of protecting life, whether it be by gun control or protecting the life of the infant. The fact that neither party has a definitive position on the issue deems that neither party truly defends life. Spurred by the culture of violence, the United States will have more mass shootings and more violent crimes committed against fellow citizens until an example comes along either socially or politically that reintroduce the old ways of moral and ethical rational by means of theological and philosophical traditions. Political leaders need to remove money and influence from their decision making to truly protect life and instill a culture that brings about the pursuit of justice, harmony, and truth.