{"ops":[{"insert":"Our hearts go out to the victims of the mass shootings in Buffalo, NY, Laguna Woods, CA, and all the places in which innocent people have been murdered by ideologues, or by mentally ill people, throughout the past few years. These murders have now become so routine that we seem to become numbed to them, unless of course we are directly affected by them. The families of those killed in these mass shootings systematically call for us to do away with the bias, prejudice, hatred that underlies these crimes. Though we know that mass murderers act for differing reasons, based in differing assumptions and world views, we also know that "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"their reasoning which leads them to these heinous crimes is fundamentally and dangerously flawed"},{"insert":".\n \nIf we lived in a world where fairminded critical thinking were advanced and actively cultivated, rather than being given lip service, we would be able to better address this problem at a foundational and systemic level. But egocentric and sociocentric thinking, the opposites of rational, reasonable thinking, remain the norm in human societies, as has been the case throughout human history. Group think is rampant at all levels of human society, from which prejudice and bias emerge. Distorted views keep us from seeing things as they are, and many social networking sites deliberately or inadvertently encourage these distorted views. Supremacist forms of thinking seem to be on the rise across the world. How sad that it is taking humans so long to understand and embrace basic ethical principles that all reasonable persons should readily give assent to.  \n \nTo learn more about the problems of prejudice and bias running through human life, see excerpts from Liberating the Mind: "},{"attributes":{"color":"#0563c1","link":"https://community.criticalthinking.org/viewDocument.php?doc=../content/library_for_everyone/128/LiberatingtheMind-OvercomingSociocentricThoughtandEgocentricTendencies.pdf&page=1"},"insert":"https://community.criticalthinking.org/viewDocument.php?doc=../content/library_for_everyone/128/LiberatingtheMind-OvercomingSociocentricThoughtandEgocentricTendencies.pdf&page=1"},{"insert":"\n \nUntil we do begin to actively foster, throughout schooling and society, understanding and embodiment of intellectual virtues such as intellectual empathy, intellectual autonomy, confidence and reason, and fairmindedness, we will not be able to address the root problem of prejudice in human cultures. It is this prejudice, through distorted thinking, that frequently leads some imbalanced people to take the lives of innocent persons due to their skin color, religious creed, or country of origin.\n \nUntil we do achieve fairminded critical societies, which appears to be a long way into the distant future for the human species if it ever is to occur, we can address the problem of mass murderers, to a large degree, through reasonable gun legislation. It is the responsibility of our politicians to protect the public interest. "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"By refusing to pass reasonable gun laws, politicians reveal that they are not concerned with protecting innocent people"},{"insert":". "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"They themselves are therefore implicated in these crimes"},{"insert":". We the people are also to blame for failing to elect and support politicians concerned to act according to the common good who would pass reasonable laws in our common interest. How sad it is that, after the imbalanced murderers complete their sick, distorted “missions,” and the politicians once again fail in their duty to protect innocent people, the grandmothers, the parents, the young people stopping off at the store for a few items, or those attending church, lose their lives, and their families are left with grief, torment and anguish. This pattern we are now witnessing again and again, with the same calls for change, and with nothing changing. It is beyond time to enact preventative gun laws which will not bring back the innocent victims of sick people with cart blanche to weapons of mass destruction. But it will greatly reduce the chances of further such atrocities and further sadness.\n"}]}