My roundhouse kick to evil

With another Halloween fast approaching, I was pondering the problem of evil in our country and the world.

I spent my career in movies and on television playing a good guy who overcame evil. I am proud of all those roles.

Truth is, what I've played on screen I've played in life, and for the last 20 years I've had another warrior by my side, my wife, Gena. We've always fought for what's right. We're tried to do what's right. Of course, we fail just like anyone else, but we don't stop getting up and continuing to fight for what is good.

I was thinking of good triumphing over evil again when I watched the Oregon coach speak about the moment when he wrestled away a gun from a distraught student at his Oregon high school earlier this year.

After tearing the gun from his hands and giving it to another teacher, Coach Keanon Lowe then did a remarkable thing: he hugged the student. You can watch it here in this video as the amazing and adrenalin-pumping moment was recorded by school cameras.

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Asked what he said to the student when he embraced him, the coach simply replied from his heart: "I told him I was there to save him."

Apparently, prosecutors said the student intended to take his own life. But who knows? Maybe he intended to take others out before he shot himself. One thing we know for sure: Without the courageous action of Coach Lowe, it would have been another colossal mess.

Of course, liberal media again took their turn in pontificating on this heroic situation and the issue of the escalation of mass shootings across our land. You guessed it: They blamed the guns. They assume, like Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke promised if he became president: If we just take away all the guns, the mass shootings will magically disappear.

Blaming guns for mass shootings is like blaming beds or back alleys for rapes, crowbars for burglaries, and Slim Jims for car thefts. It's not the weapon or tool used in the crime that's to blame. The primary cause of mass shootings, like other violent crimes, is the corrupt character of the criminal.

It reminds me of a billboard I heard about in Arizona that points to the very first murder as recorded in the Bible. The billboard reads: "Cain killed Abel with a rock. It's a heart problem, not a gun problem. Jeremiah 17:9." Despite that we don't know for sure if Cain's weapon was a rock, the point is still taken. (Jeremiah 17:9 in the Bible is: "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?")

The biggest problem in the U.S. is the biggest problem in all of us: the potential for evil. It's not a mental problem, but a heart problem.

Adam Lankford, an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Alabama, said, "It's harder to quantify it, but I've been struck by research that shows that being famous is one of this generation's most important goals. It seems like Americans are growing in their desire for fame, and there is no doubt that that there is an association between media coverage that these offenders get and the likelihood that they will act."

Bottom line, he isn't describing mental illness, not in the technical sense. He's describing a heart and societal problem. It is also what Dr. Dewey Cornell described, when he wrote: "In most [mass shooting] cases … we find out that the attacker was depressed, angry, frustrated, embittered, and disillusioned. There is usually ample warning in the form of threats and desperate statements. Rarely are there no prior indications. … We have to do more to identify and intervene with persons who are depressed like this."

It is no coincidence that, in 2015, the Umpqua Community College Oregon shooter posted his own commentary on one website about the murderous thug who gunned down two journalists the previous August: "A man who was known by no one, is now known by everyone. His face splashed across every screen, his name across the lips of every person on the planet, all in the course of one day. Seems the more people you kill, the more you're in the limelight."

Mass shooting has become a quick road to notoriety. And why do these killers need that massive attention? Because they have a giant hole in their heart. Remember, fame is fortune today, and many shooters feel they're at the bottom of society's barrel: worthless and helpless victims who have been wronged by everyone else on the planet.

I'll say it again like the billboard: It's a heart problem, not a gun problem.

As I encourage people all the time, don't just watch for potential criminal activity, but actively work on where you can do good, instill value and build up others' character in your spheres of influence. We need to take who we are and what we can do best, and help rebuild the heart of American core and character, and most of that starts with kids.

One of the most significant ways Gena and I help to rebuild America's future is by building up kids' character through our foundation: KICKSTART KIDS, or KSK, which seeks to build character through karate in students in Texas public middle schools.

Regardless of whether you're Catholic or not, Pope Francis hit the nail on the head a few years ago: "Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards 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 in order to do that, we're going to have to call again on the One who we've given the boot from the public square, education, entertainment, courtrooms, politics and many of our homes. The tragic result of doing so is that 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 every day through classroom and culture. There is no God and no moral absolutes. Humans are nothing more than the evolutionary end of glorified apes. Salary is supreme. Gold has trumped the Golden Rule. Possessions matter more than people. Fame is fortune. Religion is a relic. Sport events 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? Instead, we blame mass shootings on guns and mental illnesses?

If we start anywhere in restoring the heart of character, we should reintroduce our kids and nation to goodness and God. As I wrote in my book, "Black Belt Patriotism": "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, 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 that morals flow from one's accountability to God and that without God, moral anarchy results – and that's exactly what has happened.

On the eve of another Halloween, a day steeped in the origins of evil, I'd challenge my readers not only to have fun with their families but also do something good for others. Maybe you might bring a neighbor a Halloween baked good or give out a little literary encouragement with every piece of candy to those costume-cute kids who come knocking at your door.

Whatever you do, please remember one of my favorite quotes from orator Edmund Burke: "Evil flourishes when good men do nothing."

Albert Einstein said it similarly: "The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."

The Bible gives our marching orders: "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."