In the wake of the tragic South Florida high school shooting which ended with 17 deaths, Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media have launched a full-scale attack on the National Rife Association (NRA), Republican politicians, American gun owners, and the Second Amendment. And while there is chatter about so-called "toxic masculinity" bubbling up on left-wing blogs, there is deafening silence regarding a glaring commonality among a majority of school shooters: fatherless homes.
As noted by University of Virginia Professor Brad Wilcox in 2013, "nearly every shooting over the last year in Wikipedia’s ‘list of U.S. school attacks’ involved a young man whose parents divorced or never married in the first place.” Additionally, a study on older male shooters found similar connections to growing up fatherless.
Writing at The Federalist in 2015, Peter Hasson highlighted the fact that of all the shootings on CNN's “27 Deadliest Mass Shootings In U.S. History" list committed by young males since 2005, only one was raised by his biological father.
The most recent Florida school shooter, too, had no father figure, as his adoptive father died when the suspect was just a boy.
Hasson also distilled the jarring corelation between fatherless homes and general male violence:
Violence? There’s a direct correlation between fatherless children and teen violence. Suicide? Fatherless children are more than twice as likely to commit suicide. Dropping out of school? Seventy-one percent of high school dropouts came from a fatherless background. Drug use? According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “Fatherless children are at a dramatically greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse.” How about guns? Two of the strongest correlations with gun homicides are growing up in a fatherless household and dropping out of school, which itself is directly related to lack of an active or present father.
This clear connection is being lazily and intentionally addressed by the Left — if at all — as more evidence to further squash masculinity, which they've deemed "toxic." (Admitting the importance of the nuclear family and depriving feminists of their "go, girl!" salutes is apparently a bridge too far.)
But this is nonsense. Masculinity, or testosterone, when channeled correctly by a guiding male figure, can be the most productive, good thing in the world. Of course, no guidance, or poor guidance, can be disastrous.
“Without dads as role models, boys’ testosterone is not well channeled," wrote author Warren Farrell at USA TODAY. "The boy experiences a sense of purposelessness, a lack of boundary enforcement, rudderlessness, and often withdraws into video games and video porn. At worst, when boys’ testosterone is not well-channeled by an involved dad, boys become among the world’s most destructive forces. When boys’ testosterone is well channeled by an involved dad, boys become among the world’s most constructive forces.”
The destruction of the home has a harmful impact on girls, too, as they become more prone to promiscuity, depression, and self-harm. ​
This is not a condemnation of all single mothers, or their sons, but should act as a wake up call: the breakdown of the family unit has grave consequences for society as a whole. The Left can choose to confront this reality, or continue to mock the Right for espousing traditional values and obfuscate with attacks on the NRA and masculinity in general.
My money is on the latter.