Our State and Country are in moral decline
by Senator Rod Pelton, Senate District 35
Every Tuesday morning, I take solace in attending a prayer breakfast with some of my fellow colleagues here at the Colorado State Capitol. The issues we see here under the Gold Dome and around the Denver area have really started to wear on my spiritual health and well-being. I am not sure if it was something that was said or if it was due to the atmosphere, but last Tuesday morning I felt an internal push to do more than to just ponder about the issue we, as a society, find ourselves in.
I felt compelled to speak up during third reading today against HB23-1219 (Waiting Period to Deliver a Firearm). Speaking up during third readings is something that I had seldom done in my last four years when I served in the House; however, a question was stuck on my mind that I just had to vocalize. What did we not have one hundred years ago?
We didn’t have gun-free zones. We had a citizenry who knew about guns and respected them. We didn’t have rampant mental health and drug issues in our state and country. We had a community who we could trust and seek for guidance. We didn’t have a dysfunctional household dynamic; now the family structure of this country is being obliterated. We had and honored the father figure who was at the center of teaching their kids right from wrong.
There have been several bills run through this building (some that I have been a part of) to get at the cause of the problem. This bill is just another Band-Aid. This is just another treatment of the effect and not the cause, and until we get down to that root cause, we will continue to have these issues. This bill is legislating behavior; we all know how that turns out. You cannot legislate behavior.
I strongly believe that when we get right down to the very center of this problem, it is a moral and a spiritual problem. This country has moved further and further away from God and His principles and teachings. Until we get right with God, in our souls, there is always going to be a hole. A lot of times that hole is filled with anger and wrong-doing.
We, my Republican colleagues and I, were raised with the fundamental principles of our Constitution and of our God, and we believe that the second amendment shall not be infringed.
We are not the same nation we were 100 years ago
by Brian Orr, co-publisher, the World Journal
Senator Rod Pelton wrote us and asked to run his op-ed in our paper this week, which appears here.
As I read over Senator Pelton’s piece, I was struck by a thought; he laments how far we as a nation have slipped from a century ago.
Really?
I guess we’ve slipped even farther from 2oo years ago, and really down the slope from 300 years ago.
And although a person might pine for the ‘good old days’, that’s not where we live today, and we are never going to go back to those times. We live in the Here and Now, in a completely different reality. Gun violence is a reality, and no wishing we were all just better about it isn’t going to solve the problem. Some households are dysfunctional; some people are trans; mental health and drug abuse are part and parcel of who we are as a society, and that is the reality of today. We need to work towards solutions to the problems, and not just shake our heads.
America in 1923 sure was great- for rich white men. The Equal Rights Amendment was struggling through congress, to give women equal legal status as men, and minorities, well; the Tulsa Race Massacre was just two years prior in 1921, to give you an idea of their status.
I would ask that our state senator step into the 21st century, and focus on helping his constituents on what they face NOW, and not tell them they should have listened to Father, who back then knew best.
