Symptoms and Causes

Franklin Regional High School: Not a knife free zone

No doubt, Alex Hribal will now be examined by an army of psychiatrists after he went on a rampage recently (April 9) at Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville Pa., stabbing 22 of his classmates, some critically.

No one knows what set the 16-year old student off. Many of Hribal's friends and classmates describe him as a normal teenager who blended in with people, got good grades and showed absolutely no inclination for violence.

Until Wednesday. Hribal didn't fit the stereotypical mold of a loner-loser who was bullied by older kids and had trouble fitting in. He had no previous history of drugs, gang activity, run-ins with the police or confrontations with family members, neighbors or other kids.

And yet for whatever the reason, Hribal succumbed to evil and lost control of himself. And because of that, his life will forever be changed along with many of his victims.

Certainly, Hribal was motivated by evil. And whether that motivation came from exposure to violent video games, involvement in Satanism or some other form of the occult, or from the depraved violent culture that is delivered to young people today via social media, Hribal allowed himself to be consumed by some form of spiritual darkness.

And that's the real motivation behind the growing violence and depravity that's sweeping across much of the world like a flood of sewage. 

You can pass ever more restrictive laws that restrict access to firearms, and you can install more surveillance equipment that eradicates what little privacy we have left in the name safety and security, but that will never eradicate the presence of evil. Because evil resides in the hearts of all fallen human beings. (Jeremiah 17:9)

Franklin Regional High School is a gun free zone. And yet those who reject God; His commandments and His transcendent moral laws to embrace evil will manage to find a way to satisfy their lust for violence, even if they can't get a gun.

Alex Hribal tried to satisfy his evil desires through knives. Will knives soon be regulated like guns? 

Those who deny the presence of evil in the human heart will continue to affix blame for violent incidents such as the Franklin Regional High School rampage on just about anything except evil. 

Sadly, that incident underscores yet again what happens when a society turns away from God and chooses to find its own solutions for problems that can only be solved by turning from sin and being born again into eternal life by faith in Jesus Christ.

And sadly, the incident that took place at the Murrysville, Pa. high school underscores yet again that we are living in the terrible times that the apostle Paul prophesied of 2,000 years ago. (2 Timothy 3:1-5)