Stopping America’s Violence Epidemic

Chapter 1 The Epidemic of Violence in America On Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2018, 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz entered the high school in Parkland, Florida from which he had been expelled, and killed 17 individuals and wounded 15 others with an AR-15 rifle. He then laid down his weapon and ammunition, exited the school along with the other students and went to a nearby Subway and McDonalds before he began walking home. A police officer saw him, recognized him, and arrested him. Reporters interviewed relatives, friends, and neighbors and learned that he was adopted as an infant and raised in a normal home by his adoptive parents who did the best they could in raising him. However, his adoptive father died when Nikolas was six years old and this was traumatic for him. Then he was raised by his adoptive mother, who had difficulty controlling him, and she frequently consulted with the police about his behavior. His aunt said that Nikolas had trouble controlling his temper and he often broke things when angry, so his mother took him to a mental health counselor when he was a young child. The aunt also stated that school children picked on him and ganged up on him and even beat him up at times. When he entered high school his problems continued. He became threatening toward other students at school and he talked a lot about guns, knives, and hunting. He was taken to a mental health clinic where a family member said he “may have been taking medication.” Cruz had a girlfriend with whom he became abusive, and after she broke up with him he became lonely and sad. When his girlfriend found another boyfriend Nikolas got into a fight with him. He then was expelled from the school for taking a knife to school, and the teachers were told not to allow him to enter the school with a backpack. He posted pictures of weapons and dead animals on Instagram and stated that he wanted to be a “professional school shooter.” The Department of Children and Families sent investigators to Cruz’s home after he turned 18, because they were informed about his posts on Snapshot where he talked about cutting himself and had asked for help in getting a gun. The New York Times reported that Cruz was found by the investigators to be “low risk” because “he was regularly taking medications for ADHD.” NBC news stated that Nickolas’s adoptive mother “insisted he received his necessary medication as prescribed,” and the official department report quoted Cruz’s clinician at the local mental health center who stated “there are no issues with [Cruz’s] medication and he has been compliant with taking his medication and keeps all his appointments” (Breggin, 2018). He was free to buy an AR-15 because he was consistently taking his prescribed psychiatric drugs. In November of 2017 Cruz’s mother died and he began living with the family of a friend of his. This family stated they had no problems with him while he lived with them and they allowed him to bring his guns (which he had legally purchased on his own) to their house, but they were kept in a locked gun case. On Valentine’s Day he told the foster father that he wasn’t going to school on Valentine’s Day. After the family left him at home he opened the locked gun case with a key he had secretly hidden, and he went to the high school and killed 14 students and 3 teachers. After he was apprehended he confessed to the shooting and was charged with 17 counts of murder. The media immediately began the heated debate about gun control again, with the Left calling for a ban on guns and the Right calling for more mental health services. Each time there is a mass shooting in our country this same debate occurs, but it is never resolved. The truth is that the government and the media have no understanding of the reason for this escalating violence in America, and they have no solution for it, because the violence is not caused by the availability of guns and the mental health profession has no solutions for anger and violence. In fact, there is strong research evidence that psychiatric medications are a significant factor in most mass killings. Chapter 2 Overcoming Anger and Disappointment After learning how the Lord can set people free through prayer, I began using this new-found prayer process every opportunity I had in my church and with individual cases referred to me. Then my wife and I moved to Nashville, Tennessee to be closer to our children and I opened up a private practice where I began to use this prayer ministry with individuals and couples. I also began working for several group homes for boys, and it was there that I had many opportunities to gain valuable experience using this ministry. At one of the group homes I was asked to provide counseling for a young man who was 17 years old. He was one of the more mature young men in this facility and he tried to follow the rules of the home and cooperate with the staff. When I first met with him I asked him what he wanted help with, and he said, “My anger.” I asked him to give me an example of a recent time when he got angry and he said, “Just this last weekend I got angry.” I asked him what happened and he said, “One of the other boys said something to me that made me mad, so I got in his face and was ready to jump on him and the staff rushed in and separated us. I was so mad that I couldn’t calm down for half an hour. Then it happened again the next day; another boy said something that made me mad and I got in his face and was ready to hit him when the staff came rushing in and separated us again. It took me thirty minutes, again, to calm down. Then I started getting angry at the staff who were intervening; I’ve been angry at everyone all week!” “So, you want to get rid of this anger?” I asked. He nodded and said, “Yes, I’m tired of it; it gets me in trouble all the time.” “Well, let me ask you this,” I said. “When is the first time that you can remember getting really mad like this?” Without a moment’s hesitation he said, “When I was eight years old.” “What happened when you were eight?” I asked him. “My parents were divorced and all us kids lived with our mom, and sometimes she would take me and my little brother over to Dad’s house and we would hang out with him and play, then she would come get us and take us home. When I was eight years old, one day my mother took us to our dad’s house and dropped us off and said, ‘I’m going to the store down the street on the corner to get some cigarettes then I will come back to pick you up.’ So, she took off and my brother and I began to play. We played for quite a while, then stopped to look up for Mom to see if she was on her way, but we couldn’t see her so we kept on playing. Then it started to get dark and sometime that evening I realized that my mother was not coming back. That was the last time that I ever saw her.” He continued, “When that happened I was so angry that I stayed angry for two solid years! I didn’t care about anything; I didn’t care about school and began skipping it, I began getting into a lot of fights, and I began drinking and using drugs because I was so mad!” “Well, I don’t blame you for being angry,” I responded. “I would be angry too if my mother did that to me. That’s just normal to be angry about something like that; you have a right to be angry. But that was nine years ago; do you want to stay angry or would you like to get rid of that?” I asked. “No, I’m tired of getting angry and getting in trouble all the time,” he said. “I’d like to get rid of it.” “I can show you how to do that. There are basically two things you have to do,” I told him. “The first thing you have to do is just be honest about why you are angry at your mother.” “Well, she was a pretty good mother until this happened,” he said, “but it makes me angry that she lied to me, she abandoned me, and she hasn’t called me even once in the last nine years.”