Lack of self-control may be only the beginning
- posted: 16 Oct. 2007
- scrollopinion@byui.edu
It’s hard to imagine what would cause someone to take the life of another. We should each be increasingly more grateful that Christ will carry the burden of judgment and not any of us. Even so, it’s reasonable to be curious about why Tyler Peterson, a 20-year-old sheriff’s deputy, opened fire and killed six of his acquaintances last week.
Among the many reasons that could have driven Peterson to this sad fate, perhaps one worth noting, is an apparent lack of self-control and need for instant gratification in Peterson and American culture.
Let’s take a look at consumer debt as an example of self-control. According to the Federal Reserve, in 1968 consumers’ total credit debt was $8 billion. Today, it is $880 billion.
According to Experion, a credit-reporting agency, one in 10 Americans has more than 10 credit cards in his or her wallet. The average American has at least four credit cards.
Where is all of this debt going? Is it going to worthwhile pursuits like education or health care? Perhaps, but according to CardData, a financial tracking firm, U.S. consumers racked up an estimated $51 billion worth of fast food on their personal credit cards in 2006, compared to $33.2 billion one year ago. That’s a lot of money for Happy Meals.
It’s certain that many recognize our society as being increasingly gluttonous. The insidious and growing need for every aspect of our appetites to be satisfied now rather than later is manifest in aberrant behavior — like Peterson’s.
Pride was apparently one of the the unsatisfied motives for his heinous crime. Moments before he took the lives of his six young friends, he went, uninvited, to a party to try and patch up his relationship with his ex-girlfriend. They had a nasty exchange and some of the partygoers even called him a “worthless pig.”
In a more conservative and reserved society, Peterson probably would not have tried to air his grievances in public, and in a more conservative and reserved society, his peers probably would not have been so crass as to call him a “worthless pig.”
Instead, emotion had its way, control and self-discipline went out the window, and Peterson went out to his car and grabbed his conveniently stashed AR-15 rifle.
“A longtime friend told the Milwaukee Sentinal Journal on Monday that Peterson came to his door in the hours after the rampage and calmly explained what he had done.
“‘He wasn’t running around crazy or anything. He was very, very sorry for what he did,’ Mike Kegley told the newspaper, adding that he gave Peterson coffee and food and later called 911,” according to the Associated Press.
It’s admittedly a huge and illogical leap to link something like credit card debt to murder. But, if foundational principles of self-control and delayed gratification hold sway on all levels of our behavior, then it only proves the maxim true that by small and simple things, great ones come to pass. 
