Solutions to reduce mass shootings

I've spent the last two weeks discussing what is not to blame and what is to blame for the increase in mass shootings across America. I will finish addressing this issue talking about how to reduce the number of these hideous crimes plaguing our nation.

I've based these past few columns on the expertise of others like Dr. Dewey Cornell, a forensic clinical psychologist and professor of education in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia, where he also is the director of the Virginia Youth Violence Project. Cornell developed threat assessment guidelines for Virginia colleges and is also the author of "School Violence: Fears Versus Facts" and "Guidelines for Responding to Student Threats of Violence."

Dr. Cornell advised that the solution to reduce mass murders is not found in trying to predict violence, reduce mental illnesses or increase more gun laws or regulations, but in focusing on lonely or isolated people in distress. In other words, focusing upon people's character and needs – their heart's issues, whether real or perceived.

Cornell explained, "Predicting violence is difficult, but identifying that someone needs assistance is not so difficult. This is where we need to readjust our focus and concentrate on helping people in distress."

Dr. Cornell explained areas we all can help: "Some examples would be helping parents with aggressive children, teaching conflict resolution skills, including access to mental health services. Another promising approach is behavioral threat assessment, which involves identifying and helping individuals who've communicated threats of violence. Our bottom line is that prevention can work. Let's give prevention a chance."

Dr. Cornell added something every school – private or public – can do as his group has done throughout Virginia: "Our project trains school teams to conduct threat assessments. The school educates students and staff to report threatening behavior, and then the team evaluates threats to determine how serious they are and what to do in response. Often there is an interpersonal problem, a bullying situation, academic problems, and other concrete problems that the team can address through counseling and other forms of assistance. It is possible to defuse these situations by acting early, not waiting until someone has a loaded gun and hoping that your security forces will stop them."

"Finally," Cornell concluded, "we need to improve the quality as well as the quantity of mental health services and focus on helping the larger population of people in distress rather than those fitting a narrow definition of mental illness."

Chuck Norris provides real solutions to our county's problems and a way to reawaken the American dream in his best-seller, "Black Belt Patriotism."

In addition to observing eyes and caring hands of families, friends and neighbors in every community, Cornell added, "We need mental health services more focused on anger and alienation, in addition to the traditional problems of anxiety and depression. Finally, we need to improve the quality as well as the quantity of mental health services and focus on helping the larger population of people in distress rather than those fitting a narrow definition of mental illness."

As I encourage people all the time, don't just watch for criminal potential and activity, but work on where you can build up others' character in your sphere of influence. We need to take who we are and what we can do best, and help rebuild the heart of American character.

Helping to build up kids' character is why my wife, Gena, and I started our foundation: KICKSTART KIDS, or KSK, which seeks to build character through karate in students in Texas public middle schools.

Despite whether you're Catholic or not, Pope Francis hit the nail on the head for a goal in each of our lives: "Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move toward what they think is good. … Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place."

Speaking of religion, I would lastly add that we could use a little help from the Almighty to restore the greatness and civility of our nation. But to do that, we're going to have to call on the One who we've given the boot from the public square, education and many of our homes. In so doing, we've simultaneously removed any form of universal or moral absolutes, essentially making man a god and morals culturally or individually relative. There is no absolute right or wrong anymore. Anything goes.

Think about the messages most American kids hear and receive everyday through classroom and culture. There is no God and no moral absolutes. Humans are nothing more than glorified apes. Salary is supreme. Gold has trumped the Golden Rule. Possessions matter more than people. Fame is fortune. Religion is a relic. Sports have replaced church. Free speech has been turned into a feeding frenzy for expressing vitriol about everything to anyone. Self is on the throne of our hearts. And hedonism and narcissism are at the heart of nearly everything.

And we don't expect those views and beliefs in our dominantly secular progressive culture to contribute to the demise of individual morality and civility?

If we start anywhere in restoring the heart of character, we should reintroduce our kids and nation to God. As I wrote in my book, "Black Belt Patriotism," and back in my July column, "In God We Still Must Trust," "Without God, there are no ultimate absolutes, civility and moral guidelines, as George Washington warned our nation in his Farewell Address. He posited, how else is a nation to maintain its civility and morality besides with God?

Government (man's law) isn't the answer. And neither is education, at least without religion. As Benjamin Rush, also a signer of the Declaration of Independence, explained, "Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind."

Our Founders had a better answer than government or even education. God is the answer. God is the moral compass of America. Or He should be, if we ever want to restore morality in our homes and civility to our land. Our founders believed morals flow from one's accountability to God, and that, without God, moral anarchy would result, and that's exactly what has happened across America.

If you don't believe me, then please listen to the founding giant of our country, who warned future generations with the following challenge as well as provided the supreme solution of all. Has his prophetic warning come true? And are we at last in a moment to heed his advice?

George Washington warned in his Farewell Address (1796) after his two terms as America's first president: "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

Can it get any clearer than that?