A little after 7:30 a.m., two weeks before the nation’s first presidential primary caucuses for the 2024 election, a disgruntled and armed 17-year-old entered Perry High School in Iowa and murdered the principal, shot an 11-year-old to death and shot four others before killing himself. The coverage was sudden, intense and short-lived. The story was not the top of the web site of many national news outlets by the end of the following day. GOP candidates barely mentioned it as they crisscrossed the state.

We blame guns. We defend guns. We look for a cure to evil at the same time we denounce its existence. American society has become more toxic. Americans seem to hate more and tolerate less. Compromise is seen as weakness and those with whom we disagree are now our enemies. Whatever solution may exist, America must begin by acknowledging we have devalued life – and that has consequences.

Before we rush to point fingers at one party or the other, look in the mirror. This is a bipartisan cancer spreading though the U.S. body.

We have spent more than two generations telling ourselves and our children life has only the value some other person gives it. Here, in Colorado, we have the most permissive abortion law in America – maybe in the world. If a pregnant woman (yes, I said “woman”) believes her unborn baby has value, we will spend countless sums to protect the health of that baby. We even have laws that increase penalties for those who unlawfully cause the termination of a wanted pregnancy. On the other hand, if a pregnant woman does not value the baby’s life – for whatever reason or circumstances or timing or whatever – we have criminal penalties for those who seek to get between the would-be mother and ending the life inside of her.

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For unborn people, their lives are only worth what someone else says they are worth. They cannot beg for their lives and nobody can object for them.

We have also embraced the notion that suicide by doctor is not only permissible, but to be embraced and assisted. Some seek to broaden our laws to permit such suicides for an increasing number of maladies. Simultaneously, and ironically, those same people seek to broaden the ability of a judge to rip away Second Amendment rights based on a complaint by Attorney General Phil Weiser or the art teacher who hated you the most in high school, because – it could prevent suicides.

Our criminal laws send the message life is cheap. Innocent life is cheap. Evil, cold-blooded killer life is to be assiduously protected.

We have diminished the value of life by treating the murder of another as if it were merely some other crime. Gov. Jared Polis – on his own initiative and without legal compulsion – commuted all of Colorado’s death-row inmates – each a cold-blooded murderer of more than one innocent Coloradan – to merely life sentences. Colorado Dems have already reduced the penalty for killing someone during a violent felony from life in prison to parole eligibility in fewer than 24 years. This year, those same Dems will seek to reduce the penalty for “extreme indifference murder”- the same murder the Aurora Theater mass murderer was convicted of 12 times – to the same weak sentence of parole eligibility after only 24 years.

When a drunk driver – even a repeated one – plows through a crowd, killing a family, she faces charges that allow for probation. For those who drive into cyclists or pedestrians or others – killing them – and then fleeing the consequences of their conduct, yes, they could get probation too.

In Colorado, the deliberate killing of an innocent baby at the moment of birth is protected and celebrated by the same folks who wail about the sanctity of an unrepentant convicted mass murderer’s life. This is Colorado. This is America.

It is not just the Democrats. Right-wing extremists throw terms like “traitor” and “treason” around to label anyone with whom they disagree. They use those terms to advocate for “the gallows” for political opponents. A caller to my show recently said that President Joe Biden should be hung as a traitor. These nut-jobs justify their language on their sincere belief in the dire straits in which they see America. In their twisted minds, as long as we have a good, sincere reason, life can be taken that quickly.

We have cultivated a society that believes taking a life is justified, as long as you have thought about it first and can justify to yourself why that life should be taken. It is not the guns, or economic inequality, or stolen elections or any other excuse. It is us. We created this environment, and we hatched these generations, and now they have come home to roost.

George Brauchler is the former district attorney for the 18th Judicial District. He also is an Owens Early Criminal Justice Fellow at the Common Sense Institute. He hosts “The George Brauchler Show” on 710KNUS Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Follow him on Twitter(X): @GeorgeBrauchler.