The worst thing...

[HankL]

We have a wonderfully diverse group of people here, most of whom can express their ideas and type much better than myself. It is not beyond reason that our group could have individuals within that really do know why a small group of people would commit mass murder or cause or entice one member of their group to do the same. When I was in high school, a fistfight after school was important, on occasion, fights would happen between students of different schools after a ball game or a chance meeting! I was no saint back then, I drank a few beers smoked a little dope "Yes, I inhaled" and the great video games such as "PONG" were in the future. I would like to know from this group of people, our group of people, what has changed these kids. Remember, most were from one parent homes, some were not, others...
Any input would help ME.
Thank's, Hank

 

[Mikey]

I don't know if anyone really knows what causes these children to do such horrific things but I do know it isn't just one thing. If it was, it would be easy to fix. If it was just the guns we could fix it. If it was just the single parent homes, or the lack of discipline, or gang activity we could fix it. I believe it's all these things and more.

It's a culture shift that is detrimental to our way of life. The way of life that founded this nation and made it great is vanishing at an exponential rate and the majority of the people in this country don't give a damn as long as the economy is booming. I didn't believe that for a long time but my eyes have been opened. I have some observations to share that contrast todays values with those of the recent past:

Religious freedom and prayer in school were commonplace and accepted as good. No more!

Deviant sexual behavior was bad and unacceptable to normal people. Now it's called a "lifestyle" and gets the President of this nation high approval ratings.

Bad behavior would get you swift, shure punishment at school, at home and in the courts. Now you get help, understanding and counseling.

People used to be held personally responsible for their actions. Now they trot out the excuses and blame everybody and everything except the person that did the deed.

Families used to get by on one salary and still have a home and a car and a comfortable lifestyle. Now it takes two (and at least one with higher education) just to break the poverty level.

People used to help each other in the community (not the "Black community" or the "Hispanic community" or the "Jewish community" or any of the media labeled, so-called communities - the real community where we all live). Now we pay the "government" to take care of those things!

We used to trust and honor our representatives. Now we look at them with fear and mistrust. We even admit that we EXPECT them to lie to us but pretend it's ok.

We would never have even considered giving up freedoms given to us by God and guaranteed by our Constitution as trade for a perception of safety. Any who consider it now deserve neither!

As money has become harder to come by and more is needed to live comfortably, we have come to worship the dollar like we used to worship God. It rules the lives of the majority of this nations citizens. If it didn't, we would not be suffering through a second term under the current sexual predator and compulsive liar we are forced to call our President! All of these school tragedies have happened during his reign.

Sorry for the length

Mikey

 

[Grayfox]

Mikey,
You are absolutely correct. The real problem is moral bankruptcy. There is no more right and wrong, just various degrees of right or wrong. Everyone used to know not to "cross the line". Today the line between right and wrong wiggles in a thousand directions and is constantly moving. Personal responsibility is a thing of the past.
I blame this on the liberal notions of tolorance and acceptance of things once simply labeled as wrong. Then there are the lawyers who "prove" that their criminal client was just another victim or get juries to believe that injuries caused by a persons own stupidity are accually someone elses fault. And let's not forget the government who leads us with shining examples of incompetence, greed and immorality. Our national religion is greed. Our motto: "Screw everybody else, what's in it for me!"
Todays heros are yesterdays bad guys. Solve your problems at the point of a gun and then blame the gun!

Uh oh! I'm ranting. time to shut up.

Just how we got here, I'm not sure. Where we're going, I don't know. How to fix it, beats the hell out of me.

 

[Jeff Thomas]

You folks have offered a great deal of wisdom above. IMHO, you're right - a search for the magic cure is useless. This is a problem with many origins. At this point, with a string of such shootings, it shows us the power of influence. Every nutcase kid in the nation now has a chance to see and think about these actions as an alternative. And, I'll bet the cynical, anti-self defense types are just loving this political help. Keep watching them as they shamelessly prey on these victims to continue pushing their political agenda.

In addition to the factors cited above, I would add the pervasive violence in our movies, TV and video games. Please hear me out. Take some time someday and read the psychological research into this subject - this stuff does desensitize people to violence. Does it cause most of us, or even many of us to go postal? No, of course not.

But I believe it's like a poisonous recipe. Mix a lonely kid, no religion or a 'black' religion of Satanism or other hatred, give him / her abusive parents, let 'em fail in school and be isolated by their peers, make sure they watch lots of violence on TV, movies and video games, humuliate them, and make sure you add no hope or positive role models in their sphere of life. Now, give them the smarts to find dad's / mom's / neighbor's guns and ammo. Guns and ammo that may have been there for 30 or 40 years, without harming a soul. And when those long guns, pistols and ammo see the light of day in this kid's hands, it is a new world. Now, a deadly world.

Why? Because the guns were there? I don't see how any logical human being could come to that conclusion. The only way anyone with gray matter could arrive at that conclusion is when they totally ignore the benefit in this deadly cost / benefit analysis - the comparison of the criminal use of firearms, versus the overwhelming defensive and other appropriate uses of firearms.

So, it comes down to cost / benefit, like so many of life's choices. And the kids who do such terrible things with guns? Well, it is so much easier to find a single convenient, politically-incorrect product like the gun. So much easier than actually taking a hard look at some of the more disgusting parts of our society, and pondering what we can really do to change those. Especially since many of them are such linchpins of liberalism.

 

[HS]

Anyone remember....


MY GOD THE INHUMANITY OF IT ALL ?

That was the commentator on the Hindenburg fire.

Only 3(?)people actually died that night, where IS the EMOTION attached to News Reports of today?

Oh well, 100,000 people have been "Ethnic Cleansed", so what's for lunch Kathy Lee ?

Get my drift ??

------------------
"The Gun from Down Under !"

 

[SB]

Truth is, I think our society has been far better off. This generation of kids, now, don't have to worry about getting drafted to some Southeast Asian country to fight against some supposed oppressive system of government. Nor does this generation have to worry about how close our way of life have nearly ended in a thermonuclear game of chicken.

A couple of kids running with guns and bombs? Yeah, it's atrocious and ghastly, but strictly in terms of numbers, we're living the good life.

Not to play down the horror of Culumbine(?), but we're on the middle of yet another media and social hysteria. Things are going to get crazy. All I ask is for everyone to keep their heads clear.

Sadly, the problem is far more profound than I can ever clearly express. For now, all I can say is that we all need to be more careful with our children, and help them through difficult transitional periods such as adolescence. Thank you.