Jindal: Oregon shooter's father is a 'complete failure'

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is blasting the father of accused Oregon shooter Chris Harper Mercer as a "complete failure" as a parent.

Jindal said poor parenting and America's violent pop culture were to blame for the mass shooting last week, not the nation's gun laws, in a statement on Tuesday.

“He’s a complete failure as a father [and] he should be embarrassed to even show his face in public,” said Jindal, a Republican presidential contender, about Ian Mercer, the father of Chris Harper Mercer. “He’s the real problem here."

Jindal’s comments follow last week’s mass shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore. Chris Harper Mercer, 26, is accused of killing nine students and wounding nine others before committing suicide.

Ian Mercer earlier this week called for tougher gun control measures in the wake of his son's shooting rampage.

But Jindal on Tuesday rebuffed those calls and said the real issue was the country's lack of values.

“These acts of evil are a direct result of cultural rot, and it is cultural rot that we have brought upon ourselves,” he said. “We glorify sick and senseless acts of violence in virtually every element of our pop culture, and we have been doing that for at least a generation.

“We devalue human life, we have no regard for the sanctity of human life in any regard — from the unborn, to the old and to every single person in between — we devalue it and act as if we have almost no regard for humanity."

Jindal argued on Tuesday that the breakdown of traditional families in the U.S. is creating more people like Chris Harper Mercer.

“Our families are a complete mess, and we have raised tens of millions of young boys who will never become real men because they have no values whatsoever, they have no truth in their lives and they have no regard for common decency,” he said.

The shooting renewed the debate over the nation's gun laws, with President Obama vowing to "politicize" gun violence and Democrats pushing for tougher restrictions.

But many Republican presidential contenders, including Jindal, have questioned if more stringent gun laws are the solution.

“Meanwhile, the shallow and simple-minded liberals will continue to blame pieces of hardware for the problem,” Jindal said. "And they will long for the days before firearms were invented.

“This mess is not nearly as complicated as we pretend,” the Louisiana governor continued.

“It’s the old computer axiom — garbage in, garbage out,” Jindal said. "We fill our culture with garbage, and we reap the result.”

The Jindal statement in full:

I’m going to start today by venting, and I will warn you in advance that this is going to be a sermon, but someone needs to speak the truth for a change:
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.
But there is something missing from this discussion, and it’s a glaring omission that everyone knows deep down, but politicians are afraid to talk about.
I’m going to go ahead and talk about it, and I don’t care at all if some people don’t like it, the truth is important.
What is the root cause of all these evil acts? These people who go into classrooms and churches and murder innocent people? How did we get to this place?
These shootings are a symptom of deep and serious cultural decay in our society.
Let that sink in for a minute.
These acts of evil are a direct result of cultural rot, and it is cultural rot that we have brought upon ourselves, and then we act like we are confounded and perplexed by what is happening here.
Consider the following brew of decay, and you will realize exactly what is happening here:

We glorify sick and senseless acts of violence in virtually every element of our pop culture, and we have been doing that for at least a generation.
Our movies and TV shows feature a continuous stream of grotesque killing of every kind imaginable. And this is true of virtually every genre, from horror to drama to comedy.
We celebrate and document every kind of deviant behavior and we give out awards to producers who can push the envelope as far as possible. Rape, torture, murder, mass murder, all are cinematic achievements.
Our music does the same thing, we promote evil, we promote the degradation of women, we flaunt the laws of God and common decency and we promote it all and we flood our young people with it.
We have generations of young boys who were raised on video games where they compete with other young boys around the country and the world to see who can kill the most humans. We make it so fun, so realistic, so sensational.
We devalue human life, we have no regard for the sanctity of human life in any regard, from the unborn, to the old, and to every single person in between, we devalue it and act as if we have almost no regard for humanity.
Our families are a complete mess, and we have raised tens of millions of young boys who will never become real men because they have no values whatsoever, they have no truth in their lives, and they have no regard for common decency.
Oh, we make sure that we stop them from bullying at school, but we are completely fine with them watching people get murdered and raped on the internet after school, and we are willing to let them go to the basement and join a fantasy world where they pretend they are killing people for 2 hours after school.
And who is it that generally commits these evil acts of mass murder that are becoming routine? It’s almost always young men who have either no father figure in their lives, or a broken relationship with their father. Is this just a coincidence? Of course not.
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.

This mess is not nearly as complicated as we pretend.
It’s the old computer axiom – garbage in, garbage out. We fill our culture with garbage, and we reap the result.
If anyone is at all serious about changing any of this, they must address the root problems, and those are cultural decay, the glorification of evil, the devaluation of human life, the breakdown of the family, and specifically the complete abdication of fathers.
Meanwhile, the shallow and simple minded liberals will continue to blame pieces of hardware for the problem, and they will long for the days before firearms were invented.
But the simple truth is, as long as we place no value on human life, as long as we glorify senseless violence and evil, we will get the exact same result.

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