What is the cause of kids commiting mass shootings in school ?

[Foxfyre]

I don't want to talk politics or guns on this subject because guns have been around for hundreds of yrs and politics even longer ......when I was in high school kids would drive to school with rifles and shot guns hanging on gun racks and you never heard about someone getting shot much less dozens being injured or killed ......so instead of arguing over the weapons used or not used in these mass killings I would like opinions on what motivates todays kids to commit acts of evil that was unheard of 30yrs ago ? what has changed ? what is different about the way kids think today ?

In 26 of the 27 deadliest mass shooters in American history, the shooter came from homes in which the biological father was not present.

Coincidence? Maybe. But that is a stunning statistics.

And there are other critical factors at play. My short list:

--kids need a responsible mom and a dad in the home. Very very few criminals or violent people of any sort come from such homes.

--kids benefit from a religious faith that teaches love, respect for life and authority, caring from others. Good churches and synagogues aren't producing many criminals.

--kids need role models that demonstrate some of the best to which we can aspire instead of heaping admiration and fame, making heroes out of, or generating sympathy for those who promote hate, anger, violence, and lawless behavior.

--kids need to be taught personal responsibility and accountability in which the norm is educating yourself, staying away from illegal substances and activities, meriting a good reputation, learning a trade, getting married before having kids, and contributing to your family, your community, your country. Such people are rarely involved in any kind of bad acts.

--kids need video games, television programs, and movies that promote real heroism, good triumphing over evil, and rejection of violence except in self defense. When video games have the player having to do bad, even evil things to win, how can that not translate how they relate to their real world? When what passes for entertainment on television and in the movies promotes the worst kind of violence, promiscuity, immorality, and sympathy for the bad guys, it is no wonder that children become desensitized to violence or the pain of others and see bad acts as glorious acts. It all is teaching the kids and it is invariable that some of them will be motivated to act on it.

Maybe correlation isn't causation when it comes to kids being violent, but I sure think we need to look at what our culture has become and what we are teaching and demonstrating and how that contributes to the social problems we have.

 

[PredFan]

I don't want to talk politics or guns on this subject because guns have been around for hundreds of yrs and politics even longer ......when I was in high school kids would drive to school with rifles and shot guns hanging on gun racks and you never heard about someone getting shot much less dozens being injured or killed ......so instead of arguing over the weapons used or not used in these mass killings I would like opinions on what motivates todays kids to commit acts of evil that was unheard of 30yrs ago ? what has changed ? what is different about the way kids think today ?

That is THE question we need to ask if we really want to stop that kind of thing. Why are we so violent? Why do we value life so little, why are we raising kids who are willing to kill?

Until we spend time and money trying to get answers, people will continue to die.

The politicians on the left say to ban guns, the politicians on the right say to arm teachers, no one is looking for answers.

People have been asking those questions for decades. The answers have very little to do with government and lot to do with how we raise children, how we treat each other, and our personal sense of value.

Maybe that’s true, I don’t know. But people are asking but no one is trying to answer the question.

I think we have the answer to why? We just can't come up with an answer to how that will work in our society?

We love violence. We spend billions of hours viewing it and glorifying. We have more firearms than people. In fact, there seems to be a fairly large segment of society that would be happy to return to frontier justice, where the law of the gun rules.

Two separate things.

I love violent movies. I love them all from the slasher horror films to the shoot 'em up ones like John Wick. I have respect for life and would not kill an innocent person. I have more firearms that people in my family, yet I have not shot a single person, and my children, 5 daughters, respect life and wouldn't take a life. I wouldn't be happy to return to Frontier Justice, if by that you mean posies and hangings without due process and trial by peers.

I don't believe that we have the answer yet, but I agree that the second part; applying what we learn to society, will be the most difficult part. It's just that we haven't even tried.

 

[ChrisL]

More than likely it isn't any ONE thing, but a combination of factors gathering together to create a mass murderer. It could be a different trigger for different people, which makes them snap, when another person in the same exact situation would not. I think that coping skills probably play a HUGE role. These kids have no coping skills, whether it be with dealing with a bully, bad grades at school, a bad home environment, etc. Each person is an individual and will have different breaking points.

 

[Foxfyre]

I don't want to talk politics or guns on this subject because guns have been around for hundreds of yrs and politics even longer ......when I was in high school kids would drive to school with rifles and shot guns hanging on gun racks and you never heard about someone getting shot much less dozens being injured or killed ......so instead of arguing over the weapons used or not used in these mass killings I would like opinions on what motivates todays kids to commit acts of evil that was unheard of 30yrs ago ? what has changed ? what is different about the way kids think today ?

That is THE question we need to ask if we really want to stop that kind of thing. Why are we so violent? Why do we value life so little, why are we raising kids who are willing to kill?

Until we spend time and money trying to get answers, people will continue to die.

The politicians on the left say to ban guns, the politicians on the right say to arm teachers, no one is looking for answers.

People have been asking those questions for decades. The answers have very little to do with government and lot to do with how we raise children, how we treat each other, and our personal sense of value.

Maybe that’s true, I don’t know. But people are asking but no one is trying to answer the question.

I think we have the answer to why? We just can't come up with an answer to how that will work in our society?

We love violence. We spend billions of hours viewing it and glorifying. We have more firearms than people. In fact, there seems to be a fairly large segment of society that would be happy to return to frontier justice, where the law of the gun rules.

Two separate things.

I love violent movies. I love them all from the slasher horror films to the shoot 'em up ones like John Wick. I have respect for life and would not kill an innocent person. I have more firearms that people in my family, yet I have not shot a single person, and my children, 5 daughters, respect life and wouldn't take a life. I wouldn't be happy to return to Frontier Justice, if by that you mean posies and hangings without due process and trial by peers.

I don't believe that we have the answer yet, but I agree that the second part; applying what we learn to society, will be the most difficult part. It's just that we haven't even tried.

As Chris pointed out, there is almost certainly more than one factor involved.

Of course the vast majority of people who enjoy the violent movies/TV/video games don't act out those scenes. But a high percentage of those who do also enjoy such violence and there is less and less available to balance and counter it.

And most kids coming from single parent homes or otherwise who grow up without a biological father in the home don't become violent criminals and many become exemplary citizens. But a largely disproportionate number of criminals in our society do grow up without a biological father in the home. And the fact that 26 of the 27 most violent mass killers in America were boys/men who grew up without a biological father in the home almost has to be looked at as significant.

Is the fact that the cultural trend of mocking, ridiculing, and/or downright hostility toward public expression or acknowledgement of religious faith, scorn of patriotic pride in flag/country, promotion of disdain for reverence for life, lack of respect for authority etc. a coincidental correlation? I would lay odds that it is significant factor in creating a kind of sociopathy in some people. Definition of sociopathy: personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience.

Does the media's almost obsessive focus on anger, hatred, disapproval, and/ contempt of the President et al and/or giving excessive coverage to something like the Parkland shooting while giving only quick mention, if any mention at all, of any good news happening have an effect on how people view their world? How they feel? I think it almost has to.

And any one factor could be harmful but add them together and I think we have a huge problem. When you destroy cultural cohesiveness and norms by taking away so many of the components that create it, you will have a much more angry, hate filled, violent society.

Until we stop allowing certain segments of society that for whatever reason continue to divide us and separate us and we start promoting a return to a culture in which most of us share good old fashioned traditional values. . .

I think we will continue to see a culture that is increasingly divided into special interest groups pitted against other groups. . .

we will increasing dilute all the components of society that promote security, integrity, sense of belonging, general goodness while allowing or even promoting those things that dilute what is good and tolerate what is bad. . .

we will continue to express and display and act out excessive anger, contempt, hatred, intolerance and worse for those who think, speak, and believe something politically incorrect or who belong to the wrong' group. . .

and yes, we will see more lawlessness, violence, and unconscionable acts against the most vulnerable in our society.

 

[boedicca]

Yes, there is a reason for everything. You stated the results of changes, not the causes. But thanks for playing.

But I did state the cause. It was the post you originally responded to my dear.

The cause is us. We have collectively lowered our standard of conduct my dear.

The problem is us. Collectively, WE have lowered our standards. The signs of a deteriorating society are all around us.

What standards have been lowered? Racism? Bigotry? Misogyny?

Seems to me that the kids at the wrong end of a barrel in Florida showed the type of guts and civic responsibility that kids of 50 years ago were incapable of.

Adversity tends to do that.

I couldn't be happier for you to ignore the decline in our standard of conduct and the warning signs of a deteriorating society. These things have a way of working themselves out.

Again, what decline are you referring too?

Moral standards; conduct; behaviors; values.

The problem is systemic. The signs are everywhere. All one has to do is look at the last two candidates we chose to run for the presidency.

Those are symptoms, not a cause.

 

[Flopper]

I don't want to talk politics or guns on this subject because guns have been around for hundreds of yrs and politics even longer ......when I was in high school kids would drive to school with rifles and shot guns hanging on gun racks and you never heard about someone getting shot much less dozens being injured or killed ......so instead of arguing over the weapons used or not used in these mass killings I would like opinions on what motivates todays kids to commit acts of evil that was unheard of 30yrs ago ? what has changed ? what is different about the way kids think today ?

In 26 of the 27 deadliest mass shooters in American history, the shooter came from homes in which the biological father was not present.

Coincidence? Maybe. But that is a stunning statistics.

And there are other critical factors at play. My short list:

--kids need a responsible mom and a dad in the home. Very very few criminals or violent people of any sort come from such homes.

--kids benefit from a religious faith that teaches love, respect for life and authority, caring from others. Good churches and synagogues aren't producing many criminals.

--kids need role models that demonstrate some of the best to which we can aspire instead of heaping admiration and fame, making heroes out of, or generating sympathy for those who promote hate, anger, violence, and lawless behavior.

--kids need to be taught personal responsibility and accountability in which the norm is educating yourself, staying away from illegal substances and activities, meriting a good reputation, learning a trade, getting married before having kids, and contributing to your family, your community, your country. Such people are rarely involved in any kind of bad acts.

--kids need video games, television programs, and movies that promote real heroism, good triumphing over evil, and rejection of violence except in self defense. When video games have the player having to do bad, even evil things to win, how can that not translate how they relate to their real world? When what passes for entertainment on television and in the movies promotes the worst kind of violence, promiscuity, immorality, and sympathy for the bad guys, it is no wonder that children become desensitized to violence or the pain of others and see bad acts as glorious acts. It all is teaching the kids and it is invariable that some of them will be motivated to act on it.

Maybe correlation isn't causation when it comes to kids being violent, but I sure think we need to look at what our culture has become and what we are teaching and demonstrating and how that contributes to the social problems we have.

I agree on all points as to what is needed. However, I think the changes you are addressing are generational changes that can take decades. You can not expect children to be responsibility when their parents are irresponsible. IMHO, the first step is to convince young couples that having children is a huge responsibility, requiring almost endless sacrifices. Not all couples are suitable parents and when they recognize it and decide not to have children, they should be praised by family and friends for making the right decision. Starting a family when you are not prepared to raise children properly is one of the worst problems we face in society.

 

[thanatos144]

you may be right,but if that were the only cause why were California schools not being shot up 30 yrs ago ??

Not so. The kind of randomly targeted violence we are seeing today is a relatively recent phenomenon. There occasionally were spectacular killings in past decades but they involved one or two victims and with very few exceptions there was some comprehensible motivation for the killer's action. Not so now.

Many behaviorists believe some suicides are homicides turned inward and some homicides are suicides turned outward. That makes a lot of sense to me. Life in America can be tough in a very strange way. An increasingly strange way.

To say there wasn't mass shootings before is asinine . It was just criminals or mobsters doing it. The only real difference is the regressive attitude to not blame the criminal doing the act.... Oh and the stupidity of gun free zones

Gun free zones don't create mass shootings. People with military style weapons do.

Gun free zones create easy targets for mentally ill people with guns. Here is a clue for you if these cowards thought there maybe people there to shoot back they most likely wouldn't go for that target.... Instead they would go for the next easy target. You dont blame the tool for the user. That is just weak thinking. Of course I am conversing with a leftist regressive thinking wouldn't be your strong suit.

 

[thanatos144]

you may be right,but if that were the only cause why were California schools not being shot up 30 yrs ago ??

Not so. The kind of randomly targeted violence we are seeing today is a relatively recent phenomenon. There occasionally were spectacular killings in past decades but they involved one or two victims and with very few exceptions there was some comprehensible motivation for the killer's action. Not so now.

Many behaviorists believe some suicides are homicides turned inward and some homicides are suicides turned outward. That makes a lot of sense to me. Life in America can be tough in a very strange way. An increasingly strange way.

To say there wasn't mass shootings before is asinine . It was just criminals or mobsters doing it. The only real difference is the regressive attitude to not blame the criminal doing the act.... Oh and the stupidity of gun free zones

How about linking to one or two. The only one I can think of is the notorious St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago, which, as I did mention, was a mob reprisal and not at all the kind of random killings we're seeing today. So if you disagree, show us some evidence to support your position.

The old west is full with mass killings. Mostly from the indigenous but also from a few outside.... Oh did you not know Native Americans dabbled in ethnic cleansing of other tribes???? But I degrees.... There is also the bombings and mass gassing of Jews.... Not to mention all those democrat lynchings of black folk..... Oh and lets not forget abortion.... 80+million in 40+ years is a giant mass murder.

 

[thanatos144]

I don't want to talk politics or guns on this subject because guns have been around for hundreds of yrs and politics even longer ......when I was in high school kids would drive to school with rifles and shot guns hanging on gun racks and you never heard about someone getting shot much less dozens being injured or killed ......so instead of arguing over the weapons used or not used in these mass killings I would like opinions on what motivates todays kids to commit acts of evil that was unheard of 30yrs ago ? what has changed ? what is different about the way kids think today ?

\

In case you don't know:

The removal of God from schools
The removal of discipline from schools


No God + no discipline= a bunch of degenerate heathens with no respect for anything.

Who could have known?

Anybody with half a brain.

God does not belong in public schools. God belongs at home and in parochial schools and church.

Only according to bigots

 

[thanatos144]

It isn't video games.... The more violent they got the lower violent crime comes down in the country.,... We are in a 50 low in violent crime. If popular video games caused violence we would be seeing the precise opposite.

 

[Foxfyre]

I don't want to talk politics or guns on this subject because guns have been around for hundreds of yrs and politics even longer ......when I was in high school kids would drive to school with rifles and shot guns hanging on gun racks and you never heard about someone getting shot much less dozens being injured or killed ......so instead of arguing over the weapons used or not used in these mass killings I would like opinions on what motivates todays kids to commit acts of evil that was unheard of 30yrs ago ? what has changed ? what is different about the way kids think today ?

In 26 of the 27 deadliest mass shooters in American history, the shooter came from homes in which the biological father was not present.

Coincidence? Maybe. But that is a stunning statistics.

And there are other critical factors at play. My short list:

--kids need a responsible mom and a dad in the home. Very very few criminals or violent people of any sort come from such homes.

--kids benefit from a religious faith that teaches love, respect for life and authority, caring from others. Good churches and synagogues aren't producing many criminals.

--kids need role models that demonstrate some of the best to which we can aspire instead of heaping admiration and fame, making heroes out of, or generating sympathy for those who promote hate, anger, violence, and lawless behavior.

--kids need to be taught personal responsibility and accountability in which the norm is educating yourself, staying away from illegal substances and activities, meriting a good reputation, learning a trade, getting married before having kids, and contributing to your family, your community, your country. Such people are rarely involved in any kind of bad acts.

--kids need video games, television programs, and movies that promote real heroism, good triumphing over evil, and rejection of violence except in self defense. When video games have the player having to do bad, even evil things to win, how can that not translate how they relate to their real world? When what passes for entertainment on television and in the movies promotes the worst kind of violence, promiscuity, immorality, and sympathy for the bad guys, it is no wonder that children become desensitized to violence or the pain of others and see bad acts as glorious acts. It all is teaching the kids and it is invariable that some of them will be motivated to act on it.

Maybe correlation isn't causation when it comes to kids being violent, but I sure think we need to look at what our culture has become and what we are teaching and demonstrating and how that contributes to the social problems we have.

I agree on all points as to what is needed. However, I think the changes you are addressing are generational changes that can take decades. You can not expect children to be responsibility when their parents are irresponsible. IMHO, the first step is to convince young couples that having children is a huge responsibility, requiring almost endless sacrifices. Not all couples are suitable parents and when they recognize it and decide not to have children, they should be praised by family and friends for making the right decision. Starting a family when you are not prepared to raise children properly is one of the worst problems we face in society.

I can't argue with that, but we have to start somewhere to fix the problem. For sure we didn't get into our current cultural mess in just a few years--it has taken decades of fuzzy, convoluted, and/or selfish thinking and philosophy infiltrated in government, into education, into science, into media plus dedicated efforts of the politically and socially ambitious to divide us so they could conquer us to arrive at the mess we are in. So it will take at least a generation of right thinking and values to correct most of it.

Standing in the way of even beginning are way too many people who refuse to even consider that screwing up and/or corrupting our culture is the primary problem. They are focused entirely on blaming a political party or prominent personalities, blaming guns, blaming an ideology, blaming our past, blaming anything and everything other than themselves and/or that/those that they support, and/or what they want to believe it true.

 

[RWNJ]

I don't want to talk politics or guns on this subject because guns have been around for hundreds of yrs and politics even longer ......when I was in high school kids would drive to school with rifles and shot guns hanging on gun racks and you never heard about someone getting shot much less dozens being injured or killed ......so instead of arguing over the weapons used or not used in these mass killings I would like opinions on what motivates todays kids to commit acts of evil that was unheard of 30yrs ago ? what has changed ? what is different about the way kids think today ?

It's pretty simple. The problems we are having began to get worse when they banned God from our schools and the very halls of government. Historically, every culture has been based on some kind of religious beliefs. When those beliefs were abandoned, those cultures self destructed. Every time.

 

[BS Filter]

Video games, drugs, frustration, lack of teaching morality.

 

[deanrd]

What is the cause of kids committing mass shootings in school?

When you are raised by Republicans, you can never be sure what the kids will do next.

 

[Flopper]

you may be right,but if that were the only cause why were California schools not being shot up 30 yrs ago ??

Not so. The kind of randomly targeted violence we are seeing today is a relatively recent phenomenon. There occasionally were spectacular killings in past decades but they involved one or two victims and with very few exceptions there was some comprehensible motivation for the killer's action. Not so now.

Many behaviorists believe some suicides are homicides turned inward and some homicides are suicides turned outward. That makes a lot of sense to me. Life in America can be tough in a very strange way. An increasingly strange way.

To say there wasn't mass shootings before is asinine . It was just criminals or mobsters doing it. The only real difference is the regressive attitude to not blame the criminal doing the act.... Oh and the stupidity of gun free zones

Gun free zones don't create mass shootings. People with military style weapons do.

Gun free zones create easy targets for mentally ill people with guns. Here is a clue for you if these cowards thought there maybe people there to shoot back they most likely wouldn't go for that target.... Instead they would go for the next easy target. You dont blame the tool for the user. That is just weak thinking. Of course I am conversing with a leftist regressive thinking wouldn't be your strong suit.

I seriously doubt that most mass shooters would be turned away by the lack of a gun free zone sign for several very sound reasons.

• Most mass shootings target a place that has some special meaning. They don't just go to the next easy target.
• Most mass shooters don't expect to survive. Half of the mass shooters between between 1966 and 2010 killed themselves and over half of those that survived did not believe they would survive the attack.
• Most of these people are not "normal". They go from the completely certifiably insane, to those with a very warped perception of the world. In other words, you can't compare mass killers with criminals such as bank robbers who weight risks and reward.
• The lack of a gun free zone sign does not mean there are armed citizens in the school waiting for killers. If we abolished gun free zones almost all schools would still display the gun free zone sign because they would still forbid guns in their school.

If Congress abolished gun free zones tomorrow. It would have no effect on mass killings which is not surprising because gun free zones were not established to prevent mass murders but rather stop kids and gangs from bringing guns to school.

 

[RWNJ]

you may be right,but if that were the only cause why were California schools not being shot up 30 yrs ago ??

Not so. The kind of randomly targeted violence we are seeing today is a relatively recent phenomenon. There occasionally were spectacular killings in past decades but they involved one or two victims and with very few exceptions there was some comprehensible motivation for the killer's action. Not so now.

Many behaviorists believe some suicides are homicides turned inward and some homicides are suicides turned outward. That makes a lot of sense to me. Life in America can be tough in a very strange way. An increasingly strange way.

To say there wasn't mass shootings before is asinine . It was just criminals or mobsters doing it. The only real difference is the regressive attitude to not blame the criminal doing the act.... Oh and the stupidity of gun free zones

Gun free zones don't create mass shootings. People with military style weapons do.

Gun free zones create easy targets for mentally ill people with guns. Here is a clue for you if these cowards thought there maybe people there to shoot back they most likely wouldn't go for that target.... Instead they would go for the next easy target. You dont blame the tool for the user. That is just weak thinking. Of course I am conversing with a leftist regressive thinking wouldn't be your strong suit.

I seriously doubt that most mass shooters would be turned away by the lack of a gun free zone sign for several very sound reasons.

• Most mass shootings target a place that has some special meaning. They don't just go to the next easy target.
• Most mass shooters don't expect to survive. Half of the mass shooters between between 1966 and 2010 killed themselves and over half of those that survived did not believe they would survive the attack.
• Most of these people are not "normal". They go from the completely certifiably insane, to those with a very warped perception of the world. In other words, you can't compare mass killers with criminals such as bank robbers who weight risks and reward.
• The lack of a gun free zone sign does not mean there are armed citizens in the school waiting for killers.

If Congress abolished gun free zones tomorrow. It would have no effect on mass killings which is not surprising because gun free zones were not established to prevent mass murders but rather stop kids and gangs from bringing guns to school.

"If Congress abolished gun free zones tomorrow. It would have no effect on mass killings which is not surprising because gun free zones were not established to prevent mass murders but rather stop kids and gangs from bringing guns to school."

That's where you are completely wrong. In many mass shootings, if just one person had a gun and knew how to use it, the casualties could have been greatly reduced, or the attacker stopped before he could kill anyone.

 

[Flopper]

I don't want to talk politics or guns on this subject because guns have been around for hundreds of yrs and politics even longer ......when I was in high school kids would drive to school with rifles and shot guns hanging on gun racks and you never heard about someone getting shot much less dozens being injured or killed ......so instead of arguing over the weapons used or not used in these mass killings I would like opinions on what motivates todays kids to commit acts of evil that was unheard of 30yrs ago ? what has changed ? what is different about the way kids think today ?

That is THE question we need to ask if we really want to stop that kind of thing. Why are we so violent? Why do we value life so little, why are we raising kids who are willing to kill?

Until we spend time and money trying to get answers, people will continue to die.

The politicians on the left say to ban guns, the politicians on the right say to arm teachers, no one is looking for answers.

People have been asking those questions for decades. The answers have very little to do with government and lot to do with how we raise children, how we treat each other, and our personal sense of value.

Maybe that’s true, I don’t know. But people are asking but no one is trying to answer the question.

I think we have the answer to why? We just can't come up with an answer to how that will work in our society?

We love violence. We spend billions of hours viewing it and glorifying. We have more firearms than people. In fact, there seems to be a fairly large segment of society that would be happy to return to frontier justice, where the law of the gun rules.

Two separate things.

I love violent movies. I love them all from the slasher horror films to the shoot 'em up ones like John Wick. I have respect for life and would not kill an innocent person. I have more firearms that people in my family, yet I have not shot a single person, and my children, 5 daughters, respect life and wouldn't take a life. I wouldn't be happy to return to Frontier Justice, if by that you mean posies and hangings without due process and trial by peers.

I don't believe that we have the answer yet, but I agree that the second part; applying what we learn to society, will be the most difficult part. It's just that we haven't even tried.

You wouldn't take the life of an innocent person? So who decides on guilt or innocent. If you reject due process, the fundamental principle of fairness in all legal matters there can be no justice. A trial becomes a formality before imprisonment or execution.

 

[Flopper]

I don't want to talk politics or guns on this subject because guns have been around for hundreds of yrs and politics even longer ......when I was in high school kids would drive to school with rifles and shot guns hanging on gun racks and you never heard about someone getting shot much less dozens being injured or killed ......so instead of arguing over the weapons used or not used in these mass killings I would like opinions on what motivates todays kids to commit acts of evil that was unheard of 30yrs ago ? what has changed ? what is different about the way kids think today ?

In 26 of the 27 deadliest mass shooters in American history, the shooter came from homes in which the biological father was not present.

Coincidence? Maybe. But that is a stunning statistics.

And there are other critical factors at play. My short list:

--kids need a responsible mom and a dad in the home. Very very few criminals or violent people of any sort come from such homes.

--kids benefit from a religious faith that teaches love, respect for life and authority, caring from others. Good churches and synagogues aren't producing many criminals.

--kids need role models that demonstrate some of the best to which we can aspire instead of heaping admiration and fame, making heroes out of, or generating sympathy for those who promote hate, anger, violence, and lawless behavior.

--kids need to be taught personal responsibility and accountability in which the norm is educating yourself, staying away from illegal substances and activities, meriting a good reputation, learning a trade, getting married before having kids, and contributing to your family, your community, your country. Such people are rarely involved in any kind of bad acts.

--kids need video games, television programs, and movies that promote real heroism, good triumphing over evil, and rejection of violence except in self defense. When video games have the player having to do bad, even evil things to win, how can that not translate how they relate to their real world? When what passes for entertainment on television and in the movies promotes the worst kind of violence, promiscuity, immorality, and sympathy for the bad guys, it is no wonder that children become desensitized to violence or the pain of others and see bad acts as glorious acts. It all is teaching the kids and it is invariable that some of them will be motivated to act on it.

Maybe correlation isn't causation when it comes to kids being violent, but I sure think we need to look at what our culture has become and what we are teaching and demonstrating and how that contributes to the social problems we have.

I agree on all points as to what is needed. However, I think the changes you are addressing are generational changes that can take decades. You can not expect children to be responsibility when their parents are irresponsible. IMHO, the first step is to convince young couples that having children is a huge responsibility, requiring almost endless sacrifices. Not all couples are suitable parents and when they recognize it and decide not to have children, they should be praised by family and friends for making the right decision. Starting a family when you are not prepared to raise children properly is one of the worst problems we face in society.

I can't argue with that, but we have to start somewhere to fix the problem. For sure we didn't get into our current cultural mess in just a few years--it has taken decades of fuzzy, convoluted, and/or selfish thinking and philosophy infiltrated in government, into education, into science, into media plus dedicated efforts of the politically and socially ambitious to divide us so they could conquer us to arrive at the mess we are in. So it will take at least a generation of right thinking and values to correct most of it.

Standing in the way of even beginning are way too many people who refuse to even consider that screwing up and/or corrupting our culture is the primary problem. They are focused entirely on blaming a political party or prominent personalities, blaming guns, blaming an ideology, blaming our past, blaming anything and everything other than themselves and/or that/those that they support, and/or what they want to believe it true.

Although our society has it's problems, it is one of the best in world. I've lived in Europe, traveled throughout the Far East and spent some time in both Africa and the Middle East. As far as I am concerned, there is no society that even comes close to America. This is why so many people want to come here.

At first look American society might appears to be violent, immoral, and dominated by the worst possible people but this is merely because people focus in on the worst. The news media magnifies all that is wrong with society and focuses very little on what is right with society. If you actually look at the people around you in the country you can clearly see that most people are honest hard-working people, regardless of there political preferences, income, or race. They try to raise decent responsible kids, hate not being able to support them, and are generous to a fault. However, it's the failures that make the news and create false impressions of the country.

Compared to other societies, Americans are the most self-critical people on earth. We tear apart everything and are never satisfied.

 

[ding]

But I did state the cause. It was the post you originally responded to my dear.

The cause is us. We have collectively lowered our standard of conduct my dear.

What standards have been lowered? Racism? Bigotry? Misogyny?

Seems to me that the kids at the wrong end of a barrel in Florida showed the type of guts and civic responsibility that kids of 50 years ago were incapable of.

Adversity tends to do that.

I couldn't be happier for you to ignore the decline in our standard of conduct and the warning signs of a deteriorating society. These things have a way of working themselves out.

Again, what decline are you referring too?

Moral standards; conduct; behaviors; values.

The problem is systemic. The signs are everywhere. All one has to do is look at the last two candidates we chose to run for the presidency.

Those are symptoms, not a cause.

No. As a society we have lowered our standards of conduct. That is the cause.

 

[Moonglow]

Mental illness that is not uncommon in humans and the more the population increases the more cases of mice killing each other...Damn psychological experiments...