“What can I say. We like to fight.”

That was the response from a right-wing columnist in the United States when I asked him why there was so much quarreling in that country over LGBTQ issues.

Nothing personal, it seems. If they weren’t fighting over LGBTQ issues, they would find something else to fight over. It’s not the issue that is important, you see: it is only a purported means to an end, which is to fight. The LGBTQ issues are a false pretense, especially for insecure religious fundamentalists seeking to empower themselves.

So, if you somehow managed to pass legislation across the land removing all guns and bullets from the hands of civilians, no doubt there would be a reduction in the numbers of mass shootings in America.

But, what about lone-wolf terrorists like the lunatics in San Bernardino? If they had not been able to get their hands on guns, would they have found another way to murder all those innocent people?

I think so.

Truth is, if a person is intent on committing acts of terrorism, he or she will find a way to do it: think suicide bombers. Think of how many more might have died in San Bernardino if those two terrorists were suicide bombers.

I can’t help but think that someone with a handgun at the party in San Bernardino might have been able to shoot the two terrorists, but nobody could have prevented the detonations of suicide bombers.

So, once again, the question of gun control comes up: in California, they are talking about tightening the rules, but not banning guns altogether. That is not going to happen.

The gun control issue may be a red herring, at least in this case. The real issue: insecure people are increasingly seeing ISIS-style terrorism as a means to personal empowerment, as in “If I can’t feel secure, I’ll make sure you won’t feel secure, either, and that will give me a sense of security knowing I have that power over you.”

It’s a vicious circle.

How does America, and the rest of the world, get at the root of the problem? How does it break the increasingly vicious circle that is trending around the world?

Will defeating ISIS — and killing its psychopath leader — go a long way toward solving the problem?

Or has he set humanity into a spiral that will ultimately destroy civilization as we know it, and result in the deaths of billions of people — Muslims and Christians alike?

— Jillian