There is a ray of hope for society

Thursday morning, after two solid weeks of being inundated with blaring headlines and articles detailing every facet of the tragedy at NIU, and wading through seemingly endless Fence Post letters filled with blame and accusations on both sides of the gun control question, I ran across a tiny little article on Page 4 of Section 1 on the Daily Herald titled, "Expert will advise parents on how to raise resilient kids."

I immediately changed my plans for that evening in order to attend the lecture.

I cannot tell you how refreshing it was to hear something that would actually have a positive impact on society.

Without mentioning the NIU shooting, Dr. Robert Brooks offered deep insight into how to heal the human condition. One main point was the need for empathy.

One of the saddest articles about NIU in my mind was the one reporting that nobody showed up for the shooter's visitation or funeral. A lot of people are hurting since this situation, but we cannot forget there were people hurting before it happened who failed to receive hope or help.

Perhaps someone, somewhere, will be empathetic enough to give help to someone who's hurting and, therefore, disarm the next potential shooter.

Amid the debate over conceal and carry laws to banning guns altogether, we should not forget that if we practiced more empathy toward our fellow beings, the need for guns and the proclivity to use them would be greatly diminished.

Permit me to coin a new phrase that I urge everyone to consider:

"Guns don't solve problems; people do."

Craig Ghislin

Bartlett