I don’t disagree that depression or some other mental condition obviously existed. What I am talking about is coping skills. The video games are the outlet and some think it is reality.
Shooting
- Thread starter ProdigalHorn
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Do you really believe depression wasn't a thing 30, 40 or 50 years ago? The video games of the past decade have desensitized kids when those games started being used in place of parents doing any sort of actual parenting. Instead, parents punted and abdicated all responsibility to other people and we are surprised when their little rug rats decide to shoot up a school?
ProdigalHorn
10,000+ Posts
This is what's really bothered me about this debate. The utter hypocrisy that shows itself when a group says "we have to fix this situation, and here's how it will be done, and if you don't agree with us, then you don't care about kids dying." But the response to actual solutions that will undoubtedly help and would prevent most if not all of these events is "we don't want our kids in a school that looks like a prison." So apparently protecting kids from being shot is NOT the top priority; the top priority is preserving a mental state of mind that says none of these things exist, and the world is just as safe in the U.S. as it's ever been, kids haven't become toxic through various factors in our culture, guns aren't readily available if you want them badly enough no matter what laws are imposed, and people determined to cause death and destruction won't find alternative ways to accomplish that end.
We love to throw out our chests, posture and say "never again!" But as has been said, there's nothing that can be done today that will stop school shootings next week, or even next year. Even the most aggressive gun-confiscation program we can imagine could not accomplish that goal. But we don't want to acknowledge that reality.
It makes me wonder if some of this violence is being caused by the antidepressants themselves. A little over 20 years ago I was put on Zoloft for panic attacks and I became extremely irritable/moody. I'm not predisposed toward violence but if I was with the addition of the Zoloft I'm not sure what I would be capable of doing.
I could see some private school parents banding together and pooling their money. Not sure the public school families are able to do it. I don't know the costs but I have a feeling this could be a new paradigm shift if fear becomes a greater factor. It could really cause some serious problems with the public schools if this spreads like wildfire.
I think private school parents are going to leave their kids where they are, and I think these shootings probably cause an increase in private school enrollment. Though there have been shootings at private schools, this has been overwhelmingly a public school phenomenon, especially the mass shootings in which some freak goes on a rampage.
It's not surprising. Parents who budget thousands of dollars per year to put their kids in a private school usually care enough about their kids to be engaged in their lives.
I hate this kind of self-righteous horse crap too. However, and I'll play a little devil's advocate here, I think it would diminish the impact of these kinds of idiotic remarks if the Right followed through on some of what they say they care about. For example, I've been hearing about improving the mental health system in the context of mass shootings for several years now, and I haven't really seen anybody make it a major policy priority. For the most part, it has diverted attention away from gun control and then been set aside when the outage dies down. That's not good faith advocacy.
I think part of the problem is that to do something meaningful about mental health would violate principles and priorities that the Right tends to value. For example, we'd have to make it easier for the state to institutionalize people, especially kids. Libertarian and religious conservatives who prioritize parental rights aren't going to be fans of that.
In addition, we'd have to significantly expand mental health facilities and personnel. That's going to cost money. Who feels up for a nice tax increase? Not many, especially on the Right.
If you've had a disproportionate influence over the culture for the last 50 years as the Left has, the last thing you want to do is discuss there culture becoming toxic. Why? Because it leads to the implication that the Left bears responsibility for mass shooters. Obviously, they're going to try to avoid such a line of reasoning.
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This is precisely the thing I was thinking about.
As the father of three children, two who are still teenagers and have been home schooled their whole lives, I wonder what is going on in the home/family life of the kids who commit these atrocities. It’s easy to label them as “sick” or “evil” or whatever, but this is not normal. What has set them off like this?
My wife and I were discussing this with some friends last night and we wondered if part of it is parents who are too busy to engage deeply and know their kids, and listen to them, to really understand what is going on in a meaningful way and help them navigate a difficult time in their lives.
My kids went/are going to a private school. There's usually a decent parent presence on campus at all times. There are enough stay at home wives to fuel that presence. Also there is always at least one of Austin's finest patrolling, fully armed. Many parents though are wealthy as you say and spend a lot of time on their careers. I have prioritized spending time with my daughter (14 years old, popular, pretty and with a healthy ego about herself) about cliques and being nice to everyone. The shootings are definitely on her radar. Now I'm having to worry about her after hearing about the Santa Fe killer having been spurned by a girl. I think the school in general is safe and the kids are alright but my son (who is now in college) says that drugs and all the dynamics of teens are definitely there. It's a model on prayer in schools too because that's a huge part of this school. It's white-bread shiny happy people all the way. I THINK she's safe there.
That is the thing. Up through at least the 70s, guns were commonplace in Texas school parking lots, and I imagine elsewhere. The mere presence of guns does not cause mass shootings.
As easy as it is to blame parents, that is not entirely fair. Plenty of people come from broken homes or rough situations that end up being great people and law abiding citizens. I think we all agree the better home situation, the better outcome for most if not all kids, but I am not sure bad home situations create mass shooters either. The ultimate responsibility lies with these shooters making the decisions they made.
I agree with your words in your post. Something has definitely changed and I agree with you, some sort of dam has broken and a "will to kill" is now present.
Maybe something could be gleaned from interviewing and psychology evaluating the ones we caught alive. Maybe they will all just rant like the madmen they are, but there has to something setting them off.
I am interested in the drug angle discussed above. I wonder how many of these shooters have been on some sort of drug or drugs, prescription or otherwise. This theory may be completely wrong too (plenty of people on various drugs do not go on shooting sprees), but it is something worth exploring nonetheless. I especially worry about prescription drugs based on what I have seen them make people I know do. I have had more than a few friends take anti-depressants/addrerall/etc, act VERY nutty and irrational, then go back to normal when they got off of them. Maybe someone with the wrong personality type/mental state gets on one of these prescription drugs, then mixes it with recreational drugs... who knows?
I think it is fair to blame parents at least in part. It is true that many who come from bad homes turn out fine, and many who come from good homes do not. However, you can also run a red light several times and not get in a wreck. That doesn't make running red lights a safe or reasonable course of action. We know that running red lights greatly increases the likelihood of a wreck, and we know that raising children in bad homes greatly increases the likelihood of those children turning out badly, whether it's drug abuse, sexual abuse, violence of all kinds, etc.
As parents, it's our job to instill values and create a home culture of decency for our children and to protect them from crappy values and indecency. Others may be involved in that job, but it's ours first and foremost. What does that mean?
First, show up. Right now, that's the biggest and most common form of social depravity we have - cowardly "males" (they don't deserve to be called "men") who ditch their children. If you're a father who abandons your kids and the mother of your kids, you're a piece of **** and a disgraceful human being, and society should call you out for being a disgrace every chance it gets. There should be tremendous and overwhelming public shaming of guys like that - from family, from the family of the impregnated woman, from government, from employers, from the popular cultural - everybody. I don't know who started the idea that child abandonment by fathers was OK or something not to be condemned or "judged," but that person should be horsewhipped. That doesn't mean that it's never justified to divorce with children. It is, but culturally we've gone way too far in telling people that "it's all good." The fact that telling a politically incorrect joke is more culturally damaging than leaving one's kids is a disgrace on the culture.
Second, build a home that doesn't have a coarsened culture. Don't let garbage entertainment into the home especially when children are young - not because sheltering our kids from it will make sure they never hear or see it but because allowing it gives the impression that it has the parent's blessing or that it isn't a "big deal." By the way, garbage entertainment isn't just nudity and violence, which is what too many focus on. Much worse is bad examples. Though I wouldn't seek out either one, I'd rather my son see some righteous killing on TV or a boob in a movie or on a beach than to see kids on TV shows celebrated or made to look funny for acting like disrespectful twerps to their parents or teachers.
Furthermore, ensure that we aren't coarsened ourselves, particularly when our children are young. For example, I know I sometimes have a dirty mouth and show it here from time to time. I sometimes use profanity and make sexual remarks here (S.E. Cupp, Hope Hicks, even the nicely-bosomed Mrs. Deez). However, Deez, Jr. has never heard me use foul or lewd remarks even about his mother. Why not? Because it sets a bad example for him. Verbally, he imitates me to an astounding degree. He talks almost exactly like I do, and I don't want him to view women disrespectfully or talk about them as sex objects.
Finally, if we're religious, we ensure that the values presented by our religion get instilled into our children. As Christians, that means we find a good church for our kids and ensure that the family shows up regularly. It also means that we pray and read the Bible with our children daily. If we're not religious, then we need to find ways to instill civilizing values into our children. I don't know what that looks like because I grew up in a religious home, but I know it can be done, because I know many nonreligious people who find ways to do it.
Third, we protect our kids from crappy cultural forces outside the home, and the biggest cultural influence outside of the home is going to be school. If our kids are in a school that celebrates crappy values as so many do, it's our job to remove them from those schools. Furthermore, it's our job as parents AND as citizens to be engaged at the civic level to ensure that schools don't celebrate crappy values, and for the last 40 years, we've been horrendously bad at that. The fact that millions home school or use private schools even though they're forking out thousands in tax dollars per year for public schools should be a massive badge of shame for the public school system, school boards, and state legislatures. It's not, but it absolutely should be.
The bottom line is that while not every bad guy has had a crappy home and not every crappy home creates bad guys, the crappy home is the most common denominator. Somebody has almost always screwed up in a big way. There's a missing or checked-out dad. There's a skanky mom. There's a child molester who was allowed to get too close. There's a school teaching BS. Or some combination of these. Unfortunately, these problems are the hardest to fix, because there isn't a government solution. It's familial and cultural.
Thankfully, my only child is now in college. We intentionally kept her in public school throughout her education, however, we chose to buy homes where we knew the schools were high performing.
After Katrina, there was a substantial fall in her Houston school's performance and environment with Katrina refugees. As someone with family who came from and still lives in the New Orleans area, it is no secret to the challenges their school system faces.
We relocated to Tennessee at the start of her freshman year. Again, we specifically bought a house to be zoned to a specific school. This was a high performing public school which boasts more than 20 national merit scholars per year. My daughter performed very well here, but did not sniff being in the top 10 of a school with less than 350 students. She scored a 33 on her ACT and finished her first year of private college with a 3.98. This school was full of intelligent, hard working and respectful kids.
When we went to orientation for her new high school, the principal spoke of her goal of eliminating the "drop out" problem. She elaborated that the school really had no drop out problem for students, but often a "drop out" problem for parents. She warned of becoming disengaged as your kid becomes an adult. She warned of actively monitoring social media. She had an informal requirement that you actively come to school events, volunteer when possible and work to keep the school safe by staying in touch with other parents. This code was almost universally followed by parents. Most parents still participate even though their kids have graduated as it is part of the community norm.
This school rarely had any real disciplinary problems and had few rules regarding dress code and other "freedoms" teenagers want. What they did have were active parents who did not drop out of their kids lives.
At church yesterday, a guest speaker came to discuss a program where churches adopt schools. He quoted evidence where one school increased the reading proficiency from 30% to 75% in one year after being adopted by a church where members volunteered for tutoring and mentoring the kids. This is not a program of pushing religion at school. Rather, the power of providing love and intention to kids in need.
Effective parenting is not the only issue, but it is a big part of the problem. Unfortunately, government cannot fix this.
After Katrina, there was a substantial fall in her Houston school's performance and environment with Katrina refugees. As someone with family who came from and still lives in the New Orleans area, it is no secret to the challenges their school system faces.
We relocated to Tennessee at the start of her freshman year. Again, we specifically bought a house to be zoned to a specific school. This was a high performing public school which boasts more than 20 national merit scholars per year. My daughter performed very well here, but did not sniff being in the top 10 of a school with less than 350 students. She scored a 33 on her ACT and finished her first year of private college with a 3.98. This school was full of intelligent, hard working and respectful kids.
When we went to orientation for her new high school, the principal spoke of her goal of eliminating the "drop out" problem. She elaborated that the school really had no drop out problem for students, but often a "drop out" problem for parents. She warned of becoming disengaged as your kid becomes an adult. She warned of actively monitoring social media. She had an informal requirement that you actively come to school events, volunteer when possible and work to keep the school safe by staying in touch with other parents. This code was almost universally followed by parents. Most parents still participate even though their kids have graduated as it is part of the community norm.
This school rarely had any real disciplinary problems and had few rules regarding dress code and other "freedoms" teenagers want. What they did have were active parents who did not drop out of their kids lives.
At church yesterday, a guest speaker came to discuss a program where churches adopt schools. He quoted evidence where one school increased the reading proficiency from 30% to 75% in one year after being adopted by a church where members volunteered for tutoring and mentoring the kids. This is not a program of pushing religion at school. Rather, the power of providing love and intention to kids in need.
Effective parenting is not the only issue, but it is a big part of the problem. Unfortunately, government cannot fix this.
I agree with both of the above posts and said so in my post. All I was saying was, ultimately one person made that decision and one person bears the ultimate responsibility.
I 100% agree the better home life, the less likely this is to happen. In the fact, as I said, the better the home life, the better the outcome for every kid. That said, I was discussing more of Bystander’s post of what is setting these people off. I am not sure it is simply home life is all.
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There are many factors that are causing this, but a big one I believe is the push in this country to excuse bad behavior. Take the Rodney King riots as an example. There was said to be a justifiable reason for those folks to go crazy and hurt others and their property. This has propagated itself and grown as more and more bad behavior has become "acceptable" and/or justified. People do things today that would have never entered their mind to try 25 years ago. Did y'all see the woman who dropped her pants, took a dump on the floor of a Tim Horton's, and then threw it at the cashier? How do people get the idea that their anger is enough to justify such behavior? They see others do similarly crazy things, and social media has accelerated this by making such bad acts viewable by everyone.
AustinHorn24
250+ Posts
I still blame the parents.
First off, I think it's completely irresponsible to allow a teenager unrestricted access to firearms.
I have a Ruger SR-9, Glock 17, Glock 19, and a Daniel Defense V5 M4 carbine. I take my kids shooting with me a lot. I teach them gun safety. But I would be an absolute FOOL to let them have access to those guns at home without my oversight. Any parent who does so is being completely irresponsible. I don't care if they are a crack shot as a 16 year old and act completely mature/responsible; it's just not worth the risk.
It's not because my kids are crazy and going to shoot up a school. It's because teenagers are prone to mood swings and depression and even though they might sound like they are OK, it's way too much of a risk to take by letting them have unrestricted access.
AustinHorn24
250+ Posts
I believe mental health issues are worse now than they were in prior generations. Depression has always been around but teens have higher rates of moderate/severe depression than they did in prior generations. There's a lot of theories as to why that is true but nobody has been able to pin it down.
Nowadays with the shootings maybe, but most people in rural areas give their teens access to firearms without issue. A lot of my friends and I had access to .22s and shotguns throughout high school without issue.
I lived in a semi-rural neighborhood and it was kind of necessary. Sure, you can kill a rattlesnake with a hoe, but if an opossum, ringtail or coyote gets in a fight with your heeler and no one else is home, you have to have access to at least a .22.
Of course, none of my friends or I displayed the troubling behavior this kid did and all of us were well-raised/pretty responsible.
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ProdigalHorn
10,000+ Posts
I group these together because I've heard some responses to the argument from gun-control advocates that have sort of showed their hand. Something along the lines of "why are you blaming people who need these drugs? Plenty of us took ADD medicine and we didn't shoot any schools up. You're just deflecting from the issue of guns." So I suspect one reason that the GOP hasn't followed through is that they know what the pushback will be. Not saying they shouldn't try, but I get why no one wants to touch that rail.
I'm not sure I can explain what I'm thinking here. The frequency of the shootings has reached a point that is unacceptable but it's not unacceptable in terms of the drug issue because the number who haven't killed anyone is what they focus on. So which is it? The number of killings is too much or the number of drugged folks who don't kill are enough to prove it's not the drugs?
Not sure I explained that very well. It seems they're cherry picking the statistics.
I don't know if it's the drugs but I don't think it's the guns. They've always been with us. Always. Something else is afoot. The value of life has reached an all-time low since the holocaust or something. I think the drug angle is definitely a factor but as many have said, social media has spread the hatred like wildfire. I have to calm myself down and stop reading it. I want to be informed but the comment sections of all the articles are full of so many trolls that you can't remain balanced if you spend time reading them. I feel I'm a very stable person; 59 years old with a recent credit rating of 792; no debt and enough money to put my kids through college and retire after that. I don't break laws and pay my taxes. I do the right thing on a boring day by day level. But I feel anger swelling inside of me when I read some of the things out there. What must it be like for a truly disturbed person taking a drug that induces a side-effect none of us could control?
ProdigalHorn
10,000+ Posts
Clearly something has changed in the last 10 years. I suspect it's no single thing, but ultimately the latchkey kid syndrome, the attempt to medicate behavior, the typical school bullying, the trendy glorification of the anti-hero, and the fact that if you could convince high schoolers that jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge would make them famous forever, there would be a line to NJ of kids waiting to try it... all of that I think plays a role.
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Of course you'd hear get accused of deflecting from gonna. That's because gun control advocates don't want to lose their relevance. However, I still think the real force blocking it is money.
If the State of Texas wanted to start institutionalizing the mentality ill, it would be a major undertaking that would cost billions of dollars. They couldn't just shuffle some money around or raise a few fees or traffic fines to do it. They could issue bonds to build the facilities, but to staff, operate, and maintain them there'd have to be new revenue. Furthermore, either the state or local governments would have to hire a mess of attorneys to prosecute commitment proceedings. It would get expensive pretty fast. That means that a bunch of politicians who brag about not raising taxes (but who frequently make the government more expensive for the public, which in my book means they raise taxes but they can at least pretend that they don't) would have to raise taxes. That means major vulnerability in a Republican primary. Not gonna happen.
Clean
5,000+ Posts
I saw this posted over on Orangebloods and it is an interesting explanation of the mass shooting epidemic.
an excerpt:
the full article:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/why-do-mass-shootings-happen-best-explanation/
an excerpt:
the full article:
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/why-do-mass-shootings-happen-best-explanation/
so protecting children is a solo event?
if you don't have a side, it's because you see there is only one possible way to view any given topic. That it's inconceivable there could be any other alternative, let alone potential solution ... to any given but specifically this issue ... than to continue to the march to firearm confiscation ...
but perhaps you're right ... there are 14 members of the House co sponsoring a bill which will provide federal money to states who have laws "confiscating firearms from 'dangerous' people" ... not from felons, mind you, but pre-emptive acts.
.....
The so-called assault weapon pursuit will continue because THAT is the threat to tyrannical government, not so much a shotgun or handgun.
Killing a million kids a year thru abortion and selling their body parts ain't helping.
Yep. Heard about this article yesterday evening. I find the argument pretty compelling.
The question then becomes, how do we de-normalize it long term? Give the individual shooters less media attention? I do not know.
Clean
5,000+ Posts
I don't know that it can be stopped, but, yes, that would be a start.
They say dozens of young girls sent racy photos of themselves and love letters to Nicholas Cruz. If they didn't know anything about the shooter maybe it would help, but with our media, that isn't possible.
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