To be clear, simply removing guns from society will not fix our problems. Britain, one of the world’s most secular nations, has some of the toughest gun control laws in the world, and yet London’s murder rate is higher than that of New York. When laws were passed preventing Londoners who want to hurt others from owning guns, they simply switched their hardware and began using knives….The only way out of this downwards spiral … is to once again realize that our students are dying not because of a glut of guns, but a famine of “hearing the words of the LORD” (Amos 8:11).

I was deeply saddened to hear about the shooting at the public high school Santa Fe, Texas on May 18; I will be praying for the families that were affected.

I was also deeply saddened to see social media posts appear almost immediately blaming the violence on guns. Frankly, that is not the answer to the problem. If I can borrow a phrase from my time working in Information Systems, this is not a hardware problem, this is a software problem, and in particular, a heart problem.

Let me explain what I mean…

Roughly 25% of America’s schools are religious, with over 5 million students attending. Those students and their parents have the same access to guns as the rest of the population, so if the problem was simply the availability of guns in America, we could expect to see that roughly 25% of all school shootings occurring in religious schools. However, in actuality, less than 1% of all school shootings have occurred in those schools. That is in spite of the fact that unlike Public High Schools, the vast majority of religious schools do not have metal detectors, mandatory locker and back-pack searches, or armed deputies on site.

What do those Schools have then, that might contribute to the huge difference in rates of school shooting?

* Belief in God

* Prayer

* Religious and Ethical Instruction

* Belief in the afterlife and a final judgement

* Belief that man is created in the image of God rather than a meaningless cosmic accident and that because of that every life has a purpose and is infinitely valuable

It should be noted that until the mid-point of the 20th Century, virtually all American schools, public and private, also taught the things that can now only be found in religious schools. During that period there were hardly any school shootings, and that is despite the fact that buying a gun then was much easier than it is today and many students brought guns to school with them for hunting and school marksmanship programs. It is only since everything in the above bullet list was removed from public schools that we’ve seen a massive rise in school shootings. What has changed is that we have removed everything that changed hearts or contributed to private moral restraint. We have created the perfect incubator for violent and lawless behavior and yet we act surprised when violent and lawless behavior is exactly what we get.

To be clear, simply removing guns from society will not fix our problems. Britain, one of the world’s most secular nations, has some of the toughest gun control laws in the world, and yet London’s murder rate is higher than that of New York. When laws were passed preventing Londoners who want to hurt others from owning guns, they simply switched their hardware and began using knives. Now Britain is implementing national and local laws to control knife ownership, and when lawless people begin using hammers and screwdrivers to kill people, attempts will no doubt be made to ban those as well. The only way out of this downwards spiral towards a hyper-restrictive police state where all control comes from outside is to once again realize that our students are dying not because of a glut of guns, but a famine of “hearing the words of the LORD” as the Bible puts it in Amos 8:11.

Until we deal with that famine, we cannot expect to see an end of these sad stories or even a reduction.

As it always has been, the heart of the problem is the problem of the heart.”

Andy Webb is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of Providence PCA in Fayetteville, N.C.