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Quote: terapined

Everything is not wonderful.
The point I am trying to make is that violent childhood fantasy games are not exclusive to this generation due to my own personal experiences growing up in Baltimore.

I think you are wrong. We played violent games to be sure and people did play dead--but the idea of the game was to have everyone to be able to get up and play again the next day. I mentioned a whole bunch of things that are different and you pointed out how they aren't completely different...but they are different enough to change the way youngsters feel about things a little bit--and that is often the little bit that pushes people over the edge...

When I was a kid, people that had disagreements had a fight. The issue was settled, for the most part. It is more likely today that the issue is NOT settled and that the kid who lost shoots the one who won. Not saying that never happened before, but it is more likely now.

Quote: AZDuffman

Here is the first answer--you cannot prevent every tragedy. You cannot totally remove danger. Schools cannot nor should they be on permanent lock-down.

Here is the next answer--USA society is is such a decline that it is incapable of doing the most important thing, and that is simply watching for what does not belong. When I went to school if someone was on the grounds that did not belong they were noticed very fast. If kids acted unusual they were watched. Today the USA is so afraid of "profiling" anyone for any reason anywhere there is simply an attitude that there must be "NO TOLERANCE" and we ban kids from making guns with their fingers. Yet we wonder why there is still a problem. Quite simply, most of administration of most of the schools are just too street stupid to run anything, which is why they flee the private sector.

Here is the answer you are afraid to hear---SCHOOL SHOOTINGS ARE NOT A PROBLEM! There are 98,xxx schools in the USA. Lets just call it 100,000. Since 1980 call it 300 people killed in school shootings. 300 since 1980 is just under 10 per year, call it 10. 10 per year is one person per month in 100,000 schools. Yes, I know we probably had a bit fewer schools in 1980 but roll with it.

I am sorry, but one person per month in 100,000 schools and 50,000,000 students is too low justify making a school a locked-down prison. The money diverted can be better used for other things. The effect on the kids is not worth it.

Just because a tragedy happens does not mean we need to "do something." It does not mean we need a new law named after a victim ("Amy's Law") to "make sure if it can't happen the same way again." It does not mean we turn the nation into a series of locked down places. It does not mean we keep giving up more rights for "security." And it should not turn us into a place where 40% of the population lives scared of daily life and wants every little threat removed.

But sadly, it is just easier to blame the NRA.



It might just be an observation bias, but it seems to me that most of these shootings are in fairly liberal areas and not among the "gun nuts of the red states." Thus even less reason to think availability of guns is the issue and it is other things.

To answer the question, though, they can be kept to a lower level by common sense running a school at a local level, which in the USA in 2014 is next to impossible with the DOE wanting to run the schools from DC. They will never be "prevented." If there is a school then some nut job will eventually try to kill the kids inside. Risk cannot be removed from life totally.

You make some good points there AZ. You are one of the few that has the sight and guts to say it. Yep violence has been with us for a very, very long time. I hadn't put the numbers in context, but I agree that those are not high numbers for school killings, [murders].

I have read also that appx. 25% of students today are taking some kind of pharmaceutical phyche drug. Adderol comes to mind right away. It started partially with A.D.D. or some clinical mental probem. Then someone figured as is now happening that slow students could perform better scholastically if they take these drugs [speed].

This is a failure by our media, who is aware of this to not point it out in these killings. Many of these wanton killers are taking psyche drugs, prescribed for them.

Holy mackerel I just found this list of school shootings going back as far as 1760, kinda puts this in a different light.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States

Another place our media fails us. Remember the theater shooting in Col. last year? The shooter was taken out by someone with a ccp. Same thing at the Mall in Portland Ore., Texas same thing. We hear about how many are killed by crazed gunmen but not the heroics performed [like the Canadian] by people willing to be trained and carry and risk their own safety for the good of everyone. That part always seems to get left out.

I knew when raising kids in the 80's that these hyper violent games were nothing more than prepping today's drone warriors. The consoles to operate the drones were even modified to closely resemble xbox controllers. At the time I read kids in the ME were being trained from youth to jump through "hoola hoops' that were on fire as pretraining for the gorilla conflicts going on.

Ron and others touched on the parenting aspect of society today. A significant problem in our society is TELEVISION. I enjoy when others claim that tv doesn't influence our youth and I ask them if this is true than why do they have commercials?

A childhood friend found me and came over with his lovely Chinese [national] wife. She asked me what he and I did as kids. I thought, and replied "all we ever did was work". And we reminisced how the work bus would come through the neighborhood and get us kids around 6 am and we would go work the fields until we could get better work. Then came labor laws. I felt sorry for the kids who were locked out of making their own money by onerous childhood labor laws. The one job my dad wouldn't let me do was a paper route, because as a kid he got so screwed over delivering papers and then having to collect and being cheated out of his pay. THANKS DAD, I still love you. He worked us kids pretty hard and in an adolescent way a resented it a little, but I sure liked having my own money.
Still do.

What I came to realize later in life is that a job provides a hell of a lot more than just a paycheck. Quote me on this every time you can and I will be flattered. Some of what early childhood labor taught me was, first of all I can stand on my own two feet and work is good for you. It keeps you physically fit, It helps with your self esteem, your regularity, responsibility, the worth of your work and a dollar, etc.

Parents are destroying their kids just giving them money as surely as America destroyed the blacks and the indians by giving them aid and reservations. We have been turned into a drug addled society run by criminals who are protected by the printing press and owning the propaganda machines.

In Alaska we like to protect "our" second amendment right to have and arm bears.

Check that link, amazing

Kids didn't shoot up their schools in 50's
and 60's when I was a kid. We were
taught every day there were consequences
for our actions. Parents used belts and
switches, and the schools had corporal
punishment. Nobody acted out because
they were bullied or got dropped by a
love interest. These kids are coddled babies
now, woe is me, I'm special.

Quote: petroglyph

You make some good points there AZ. You are one of the few that has the sight and guts to say it. Yep violence has been with us for a very, very long time. I hadn't put the numbers in context, but I agree that those are not high numbers for school killings, [murders].

I have read also that appx. 25% of students today are taking some kind of pharmaceutical phyche drug. Adderol comes to mind right away. It started partially with A.D.D. or some clinical mental probem. Then someone figured as is now happening that slow students could perform better scholastically if they take these drugs [speed].

Holy mackerel I just found this list of school shootings going back as far as 1760, kinda puts this in a different light.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States

Thanks for the feedback. On the ADD thing what seems to be missed is ADD is really not the issue. A podcast I listen to puts it perfectly. "I didn't have ADD, I had classes I liked and classes I hated." Then add the reality that human beings are not naturally conditioned to sit for hours in long rows and you have what we now call ADD.

Good link, shows even more that today is not that much different than years ago.

Quote:

The one job my dad wouldn't let me do was a paper route, because as a kid he got so screwed over delivering papers and then having to collect and being cheated out of his pay. THANKS DAD, I still love you. He worked us kids pretty hard and in an adolescent way a resented it a little, but I sure liked having my own money.
Still do.

We have lost so much sine paper routes went by the wayside in the 1980s and 90s. I used to have so many employees who just did not get it at all. Customer service lessons I learned at age 13!

Quote: RonC

I think you are wrong. We played violent games to be sure and people did play dead--but the idea of the game was to have everyone to be able to get up and play again the next day. I mentioned a whole bunch of things that are different and you pointed out how they aren't completely different...but they are different enough to change the way youngsters feel about things a little bit--and that is often the little bit that pushes people over the edge...

When I was a kid, people that had disagreements had a fight. The issue was settled, for the most part. It is more likely today that the issue is NOT settled and that the kid who lost shoots the one who won. Not saying that never happened before, but it is more likely now.

Heavenly Creatures was a film made 20 years ago about a violent matricide that occurred 60 years ago. Both women are alive today, and one is a well known author. The movie stars a young Kate Winslet (Titanic) and Melanie Lynskey (Rose from 2.5 Men).


So you can find plenty of examples from earlier eras, but it seems as if a young person has those kinds of fantasies today, it is much easier for him to find material to focus on.

Quote: RonC

--Glorifying violence. We hear cold-blooded beheadings by ISIS called "executions" as if ISIS were some entity that actually was carrying out a realistic and acceptable form of law. We hear gang murders called "execution-style"...really, what state allows you to shoot people in the head as a form of execution? Hint--China is not a state. It doesn't necessarily make someone want to commit violence, but it does help desensitize people to murder because we don't call it what it is...

I can't figure out why you go on about this. The history of state style executions is all over the map. Sometimes even old courts of law in different countries were just. (Just as in the law) Beheading (guillotine), hanging, firing squad, electrocution, poison gas were all sanctioned "executions".

At any rate, I don't see more people deciding to start killing more people because of this particular word choice.

If that's all it takes, we are in a lot of trouble. He used "execution." to describe beheading.

Must. Now. Go. Kill. People.

Quote: rxwine

I can't figure out why you go on about this. The history of state style executions is all over the map. Sometimes even old courts of law in different countries were just. (Just as in the law) Beheading (guillotine), hanging, firing squad, electrocution, poison gas were all sanctioned "executions".

At any rate, I don't see more people deciding to start killing more people because of this particular word choice.

If that's all it takes, we are in a lot of trouble. He used "execution." to describe beheading.

Must. Now. Go. Kill. People.

It was one of a group of things. Alone, they may not mean much. Together, I believe they do mean something. Others think it is "guns"; I think it is a certain lack of care for human life that did not exist in as many people as it did not so many years ago.

Calling murders "executions" gives them a certain credibility they don't deserve. Pretty simple and not a controversial thought.

Instead of just arguing with everyone who says that the decline in society is not good and has helped cause some of these issues, why don't you folks present some ideas that we could work to fix? No, it is just "guns"...

Incredible.

Paco, I understand that there were violent movies and such years ago. I never said that there weren't. There were also many violent incidents. Everyone complains about how violent things are now yet they want to offer no reasons it is that way and they just say "guns" as if "guns" are the only answer.

Do you remember when violent movies didn't really show as much violence as a rule than we see now? Yes, you can say well this movie did and that movie did...but the gore has gotten more explicit and I don't think that has made the movies better--and, as part of many other things, it helps to desensitize people to brutality.

Quote: RonC

Paco, I understand that there were violent movies and such years ago. I never said that there weren't. There were also many violent incidents.

I think that the reason is not really difficult to understand. If people are having fantasies of violence in the 1940's, they may try them out on small animals and be drawn to lurid crime magazines.


But now the opportunities to indulge your fantasies are almost endless. Plus if you crave attention you see the level of media coverage of criminals.

Quote: Pacomartin

But now the opportunities to indulge your fantasies are almost endless. Plus if you crave attention you see the level of media coverage of criminals.

This is at least in part because everyone thinks that they can just do whatever they want...because people have told them that they could.