I don't know how to write a column on this theme except to say stop, stop, please stop the killing.
Killing somebody is the not the answer. Killing people because of race, gender, religion, or for any reason under the sun is wrong. Killing does not eliminate problems. Killing does not solve family or neighborhood squabbles.
A NATION OF KILLERS
We kill all the time. America is a nation of killers. Do we want to start counting people killed in all the wars just in the last couple of hundred years? How many have we killed on foreign soil? How many have been gunned down in Chicago in the last 10 years?
When you start adding up the deaths during the last decade in school shootings, theatre shootings, nightclub shootings, alleged wrongful shootings by police, and deaths of police themselves, it goes on and on.
People are sentenced to prison — or sometimes the death chamber — because of killing. People are filled with rage over somebody they love being killed, and want to kill the person who killed their loved one.
People who are emotionally able to reach a point in their lives where they can sleep, and even forgive someone who murdered a loved one, do so often after years of emotional, spiritual and psychological help.
Many are never able to reach this point in their lives.
If somebody assaulted your child, spouse, parent, sibling or friend, you would be filled with hurt and rage. If somebody tries to enter my house and hurt our family, I will use one of my handguns and shoot with intent to kill. My hope and prayer is that never happens.
I'm sure that is your hope and prayer as well.
FORGETTING ‘THOU SHALT NOT KILL’
Somehow, we must ingrain this hope and prayer in every American: the hope to never hurt of kill.
Old-time church preachers used to preach about "Thou Shalt Not Kill” and “love your neighbor as yourself." Most of America's churches gave that up a long time ago.
Today, the church focuses on entertainment and creating a feel-good environment. Churches used to send missionaries around the world preaching, "Thou Shalt Not Kill” and to “love God and love your neighbor."
When I was a child I used to read, "Thou Shalt Not Kill" written everywhere. I saw it in such places as public classrooms, courthouses and even Sunday school walls at church.
For some crazy reason, America started thinking the Ten Commandments were offensive and that the sixth commandment was no longer necessary.
Having the sixth commandment posted throughout America was a lot less offensive than this killing that's going on in our country.
REMEMBERING THE GOLDEN RULE
The sixth commandment did not prevent killings. Black people were still treated cruelly and even murdered with the sixth commandment posted everywhere. In the days when Thou Shalt Not Kill was written, people were killed all over the Middle East, and it hasn't stopped.
A chapter and verse is not a cure all, but it’s foolish to ignore it.
Somehow, we have to get to the hearts of people — and that means all races, nationalities, genders and religions have to quit hating, biting and fighting.
The Golden Rule says, "Do to others as you would have them do to you."
If all churches, communities, religions, political parties, race groups, gender groups and the whole world would just truly embrace this principle, the world would do much better.
Bad stuff would stop, and so would the killing.
Glenn Mollette is an American syndicated columnist and author.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: MOLLETTE: It's foolish to ignore the sixth commandment