Bobby Jindal took to his website yesterday to vent about the decline of the American culture and the points he made were spot-on.

Another week, another mass shooting, another press conference by the President lecturing us on the need for gun control, and now Hillary and Obama are in a race to see which of them can be the most extreme in trying to destroy the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Rinse and repeat.-Bobby Jindal

You can read Jindal’s poignant rant here but he sums up his argument by echoing the sentiments we know to be true: that our American culture is on the decline and not much unlike a computer-garbage in, garbage out.

Jindal cites the glorification of sick and senseless acts of violence, rewards (and awards) for deviant behavior in the entertainment industry (sex and violence), the music industry and the objectification of women peppered with violence, the generations of young boys who throw themselves into video games, the devaluation of human life and the increasing lack of presence of American fathers and the breakdown of the traditional American family for this decline.

Jindal also launched an attack on Ian Mercer, father of Oregon shooter Chris Harper-Mercer:

“Now, let’s get really politically incorrect here and talk specifically about this horror in Oregon. This killer’s father is now lecturing us on the need for gun control and he says he has no idea how or where his son got the guns. Of course he doesn’t know. You know why he doesn’t know? Because he is not, and has never been in his son’s life. He’s a complete failure as a father, he should be embarrassed to even show his face in public. He’s the problem here. He brags that he has never held a gun in his life and that he had no idea that his son had any guns. Why didn’t he know? Because he failed to raise his son. He should be ashamed of himself, and he owes us all an apology.

When he was asked what his relationship was with his son, he said he hadn’t seen him in a while because he lived with his mother. Case Closed.

And there we have it. Jindal hits the nail right on the head about the psychological state of our country. This is not about guns and gun ownership. There is no benefit to us when our leaders coming out and reinforcing the rhetoric that “guns kill people” for photo and press opportunities to push their agendas except to push their agendas. In fact, we can perhaps recognize this tactic as, let’s call it what it is, “garbage”. Jindal’s attack on Ian Mercer points the proverbial 48 cal in another direction-a direction that is so frequently ignored in our society as it is today. PARENTING.

“We talk about gun laws. We talk about gun control. Every time something like this happens, they talk about it and nothing gets done. I’m not trying to say that that’s to blame for what happened, but if Chris had not been able to get hold of 13 guns, this wouldn’t have happened.-Ian Mercer”

This justification is as good as telling the neighbor after your son threw a baseball through his window that it wasn’t your kid’s fault. I’ve seen kids go out an destroy property of others’ just to see their parents roll their eyes at them and exclaim their names at the top of their lungs. No consequences. No apologies to the other adults. This is as much, if not more, the fault of the parents as it is the children; the parents who refuse to take accountability and their children who ultimately end up doing the same.

Chris Harper-Mercer was described as a young man with “no life”, a young man “who thought the world was against him”, a young man who complained about “not having a girlfriend”. Ian Harper was not present in his son’s life and yet now he steps forward and plays the role of “dad”. All too often, this epidemic is happening in homes across the United States where father figures are out of the picture. Some are present in the home and just can’t be bothered and are just as enthralled in the video game world and virtual realities as their kids are. They’re “too busy” in their computer video personas killing off people and grabbing prostitutes in the Grand Theft Auto world to have real-life chats with their sons about the real world, about violence, about respect for their mother figures and authoritiy figures in general and have conversations about girls and healthy relationships. Some are too busy in their alternate realities to provide for their families. The result? The boys turn to what ever is accessible. TV garbage. Movie garbage. Video game garbage. Porn garbage. Drug garbage. Relationship garbage. Work ethic garbage. The ultimate result? Confused boys with poor self esteem who grow up to be misunderstood men with no social skills. Instead of dear ol’ dad providing Harper-Mercer with an arsenal of values, self-esteem and love for his fellow humans on this earth, Harper-Mercer grabbed a hold of his own arsenal and used it against the people whom he believed were “against him”.

Bobby Jindal is right. Garbage in, garbage out. Time to roll up our sleeves, go through the clutter of trash and protect our treasures.