* School shootings have been going on too long in our country – Trump
* Shooting took place in an art class – witnesses  
* It’s been happening everywhere; I’ve always felt it would eventually happen here too – survivor

When Professor Andrew Moe Emeka, a Nigerian professor of development communication, got to the United States of America in search of a teaching appointment in that country’s ivory towers, he was told that the United States of America has developed and therefore had no need for development communication teachers. He was advised to go back to his country where development is needed.

Santa Fe High School: Inset: Dimitrios Pagourtzis, the killer

Yes, you are developed, Professor Moe Emeka said to them, but how come your children go to school with guns and shoot dead their school mates and teachers in cold blood? What kind of development is that? Have you not gone back to the primitive stage? Surely, you need development communication as well as my country does.

Pensively, they nodded their heads and said, “Fine, you’ve got a job.”

That was how Professor Andrew Moe Emeka got a job as a lecturer in the United States.

One may argue that after all, there are also incessant killings in Nigeria, why then should we be worried or surprised about the killings in the United States? But there is something worrisome in the recurring school shootings in the United States. Here in Nigeria and Africa, the killings are connected to poverty, hunger, and strife over land and resources. What are the children in USA killing one another for?

Experts like Professor Moe Emeka say it is the dysfunctional effects of civilisation. But many believe that the so-called developed world is simply reaping what they sowed; that it is just the beginning of what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah – a people that have chosen to live without God and legalise evil.

Doing Without God

After the September 11 attack on USA, Jane Clayson of Early Show interviewed Billy Graham’s  daughter, Anne Graham, and asked her:

“How could God let something like this happen?”

Anne Graham said: “I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years, we’ve been  telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government, and to get out of our lives.  And being the  gentleman He is, I believe He has  calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?

“In light of recent  events…terrorist attacks, school shootings, etc., I  think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare (she  was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.  Then someone said you had better not read the Bible in school. The  Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal; love your neighbor as yourself. And we  said OK.

“Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children  when they misbehave because their little personalities would be  warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock’s son  committed suicide). We said an expert should know what he’s talking about. And we said OK.   Now we’re asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and  why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers,  their classmates, and themselves.

“Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do  with “WE REAP WHAT WE  SOW.”  Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say,  but question what  the Bible says.  Funny how you can send jokes through e-mail  and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages about God, people think twice before sharing it. Funny how lewd,  crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but  public discussion about God is suppressed in the  school and  workplace.

“It is quite understandable that it may be due to the perverted use to which many people have put religion and the name of God, using them to create more problems for society. That, however, should not be enough justification for us to legislate God out of our lives. We need Him more than we realise.

Last Friday, 18 May 2018, Emily Shapiro of Good Morning America reported that at least 10 people were dead after a 17-year-old student opened fire at Santa Fe High School in Texas in the morning, sending students fleeing for their lives. Ten others were wounded, including a police officer who is in critical condition.

The Governor, Greg Abbott, called the shooting “one of the most heinous attacks that we’ve ever seen in the history of Texas schools.”

The suspect, 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis, was taken into custody and charged with capital murder. The suspect had written in journals that he wanted to carry out the shooting and then commit suicide, but after the killing, he gave himself up to authorities. There were no warning signs and the suspect didn’t have a criminal history, officials said. A second individual, a person of interest was also detained.

Two weapons were used in the massacre – a shotgun and a .38 revolver – both of which appear to be legally owned by the suspect’s father. “I have no information if the father was aware the son had taken these weapons from the father,” the governor said.

Explosive devices were also found at the school, and devices including a Molotov cocktail were found in a car and a home.

The Friday morning shooting took place in an art class, witnesses said.

Among the injured is school district police officer, John Barnes, who is in critical condition. Barnes, a retired Houston police officer, was shot in the arm and suffered major bleeding.

Two school district officers on campus were able to confront the shooter early on. As students lined up outside the building, ambulances, helicopters and federal agents swarmed the school in Santa Fe, between Galveston and Houston.

“I’m scared to even go back,” said one student, crying. “It’s just not something that you should feel throughout the day, being scared, especially somewhere where we say the Pledge of Allegiance,” while another said: “It has been happening everywhere. I wasn’t surprised it happened here. I was just scared. I just kept running.”

The Santa Fe shooting was the sixth fatal shooting at a school since the Parkland, Florida, High School shooting that killed 17 students and staff in February. The Parkland massacre prompted a national debate about gun reform and school safety.

Just last month, students at Santa Fe High School participated in a nationwide school walkout against school gun violence. The walkout was held on April 20 – the anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre that killed 13.

A Santa Fe student said they read poems by a Parkland survivor, held 17 minutes of silence in honour of the 17 people killed in Parkland, and discussed ways they could raise gun violence awareness and make their voices heard.

School shootings have “been going on too long in our country,” President Trump said on Friday from the White House. “Too many years, too many decades now, we grieve for the terrible loss of life and send our support and love to everyone affected by this absolutely horrific attack,” he said.

Abbott said it’s time to “make sure this tragedy is never repeated ever again.” He said roundtable discussions with parents, students and educators will be held. “We want to hear from everybody who has an interest in what has happened today so we can work together on putting together laws that will protect second amendment rights but at the same time ensure that our communities and especially our schools, are safer places,” Abbott said.

“My prayers are with each student, parent, educator and first responder impacted,” Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos said in a statement. “Our schools must be safe and nurturing environments for learning. No student should have to experience the trauma suffered by so many today and in similar events prior.

“We simply cannot allow this trend to continue,” she said. “Every day, the Federal Commission on School Safety is working to identify proven ways to prevent violence and keep our students safe at school. Our work remains urgent. Our nation must come together and address the underlying issues that lead to such tragic and senseless loss of life.”

Trump has ordered flags to fly at half-staff in memory of the victims.

Of reaping what we sow

The Word of God which many people in the Western world do no longer want to hear says in Galatians 5:7: “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; whatever a man sows, that he will also reap”.

Beyond the sense in which Anne Graham relates the present carnage in her society to the law of God about reaping what we sow, there is a wider sense in which the West will continue to reap what it sowed. From the sharing of the African continent among themselves in the Berlin Conference of 1885 to pillaging of Africa, the decimation of her people through slavery and the more recent support and supply of arms to the Nigerian state which facilitated the genocide against Igbos, the West cannot but pay dearly for all its sins.

There is no appeal in God’s case and He cannot be mocked. People may argue that the generation of Europeans and Americans who committed those atrocities has passed and that God does not punish the children for the sins of their fathers. Yes, but it is only when the children have repented from the sins of their fathers and do not follow the steps of their fathers. Otherwise, God says in Exodus 20:5-6 that he is the God that visits “the iniquity of fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments”.

The only thing that can stay the hand of God is if those children have not followed their fathers’ sins and evil footsteps. But today, what can we see? We see legalization of gay marriage, abortion, Indian hemp, hatred for God, and arming of morally depraved states like Nigeria to commit genocides.

The present generation of the West is even worse than the past generations. That is why children like Dimitrios Pagourtzis will continue to go to school with guns and kill other school children in cold blood. Yes, sometimes good people die because of the actions of bad people. That’s why good people should not keep quiet when bad people are performing their evil acts.

It is a lesson to all people of the earth, including power brokers in Nigerian who have over the years polluted the land with blood of innocent people.