DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Parkland School Shooting..17 dead

The guys I vote for rarely get elected!

Harambe is dead so that’s probably why.

I'd agree with his voting record more than Nancy Pelosi's though.

That’s not really hard to accomplish.

The debates would of been interesting.

Well, first of all, the federal government isn't going to pay for it, the school districts are.

But as for the cost..

Well, an inexpensive metal detector, installed, is about $7-8K.
An armed guard would have to be on campus for about 10 hours per day so that's 1,850 hours per year, at $25/hour, $46,000 per year + benefits, you are now at about $70,000 per year, per guard.. figure 4 guards, $240K/year (that's probably light). Then you figure they are also going to have to work about 200 sporting events/plays/other functions per year at 4 or 5 hours each.. figure 2 at each event so add another $115K

To put up a fence, average suburban elementary school has a perimeter of about 5,000 lf.. 10' security fence with barbed wire is about $80/LF.. so $400K for the fence + 2 gates at $15K each. If you want a brick fence, that's going to cost you more than double at about $180/LF so that fence will cost you $900K. Keep in mind, high schools are MUCH larger than elementary schools for real estate...

So, your up front cost is anywhere from ... say $500K to $1.2 million per school depending on what you want. There are about 250,000 public schools in the US.. your up front total to provide perimeter fence, entry point gates, and a few metal detectors is between $125 billion and $300 billion.

Your annual operating cost, assuming 4 guards per school. Two at the primary entry point and two others "patrolling".. is between $90 billion and $150 billion per year.

And that has not yet begun to calculate the tremendous amount of emotional trauma it would put on millions of public school kids.. that number can't be calculated.

You refused to comment, so I’ll state it again.

We already have schools in the inner city treated like prisons. Everything you just described, with metal detectors and armed guards, already goes down in a lot of schools with mostly minority demographics.

So what are you concerned about? You never were concerned about the trauma to those kids. Now that it could be traumatic for those poor suburbia kids, it’s a problem?

Please.

They have the same stuff at airports too. I don't feel traumatized, I feel slightly inconvenienced, but more secure.

Online remote classes from the safety of home. No large groups no large targets. Pass the cost of babysitting onto the parents, while providing education in a modern form.

How do you know I was never concerned about those kids? You think I like having schools fortified like the green zone? You make an awful lot of assumptions about things I have never commented about.

Nor do I.

But for me, maybe I’m not traumatized because we’re used to be treated like we’re always up to no good in the inner city.

But those poor suburbia kids? Man, how will they ever cope with being treated like criminals like their fellow non white American kids do?

I truly feel for them. Truly.

Because we’ve had discussions about this before and you’ve never stated anything close to it once.

If kids are gonna be traumatized over extra security at their schools, then I’m looking dead at the parents wondering what kind of soft ass upbringing they’re giving heir kids in the first place.

It’s not even just about school shootings. It’s also because we got too many sicko adults trying to prey on kids during school hours, lurking around school zones hoping to pick some up.

It doesn’t help that parents don’t seem to be having real conversations about the threat of these possibilities, as well as enforcing the idea that’s bullying is simply not okay.

40 brought it up years ago about extra security, and I’m all for it. We can make that risk amongst ourselves, but risking the lives of our kids is simply unacceptable.

Armed and True Security is not a permanent fix.

While we figure out what to do with the nuts, we need to protect the kids with proper security!

Make the kids safe while everyone is talking the talk!

Otherwise I will see you at the next shooting while everyone is still talking like we were talking about the last one and the one before it.

Yeah while you do that? You'll also let them easily go buy a few AR-15's and few thousand rounds of ammo to commit their next massacre of children in our schools.

We've had discussions about school security before? or specific to inner city schools?


Do you know how rapidly things like depression, anxiety, and suicide are rising among teens in this country? It's staggering... now I happen to think there are a variety of causes and things that need to be addressed.. weak ass parents being one, but certainly not the only one.

You mentioned bullying, that's another one... but there are others.


That's fine but kids will adapt. They will take their shooting to the mall or the movies or the prom or the football game.. they will find an outlet for their anger.. so unless we start addressing the underlying issue, it will be a little more security... and a little more security... and a little more security... but they will continue to adapt until somebody starts making inroads to actually solving the problem.

yes.



man please. if those things happened, it aint because of some extra security at schools. those problems would come along through some other type of issue. like parenting, or poverty, or bullying, etc.

if some armed guards brought all those problems, then why hasn't society given black and latino kids the mental health excuse when something goes down? i've never gone to a school that DIDN'T have metal detectors and/or armed guards until i went to lilly white private school.



no offense but what you're saying doesn't make any sense. kids will find an outlet regardless of what prevention methods we as society takes, but we aren't talking about a movie theater or mall. we're talking about a place of education.

schools serve as a defacto babysitting facility anyway, because thats the thing keeping you and everybody else from having to cough up childcare cost for grade school kids during the day while you're at work.

so i ask you and everybody else this: if you honestly think armed guards is gonna bring on an epidemic of, lol, mental health problems, then i can take that as you giving black and latino kids a mental health excuse every time a gang shooting happens, right?

because thats the thing a lot of minorities are talking about right now on social media, and i agree.

this crap happens to black and latino youths on a regular basis, but the moment some lilly white suburbia school is effected, now all of a sudden we have to look out for the kids and get legislation done.

sorry but thats pathetic. and you won't convince me otherwise.

Question...

How many of those inner city strict security schools suffered a massacre?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P89CBU8E6jU

You are correct, the depression, anxiety, and suicides are already happening for a variety of reasons.. fortifying the school will only make it worse.


I don't know, maybe they deserve it... I guess if I had to make a distinction, most of the crime in the inner city schools seems to be "personal".. somebody has a beef with a person, they stole their gf, etc and somebody goes after an individual.. they aren't shooting a dozen random people they don't know.


My kids schools have always had a police presence.. car parked outside, one cop hanging out (armed)...

My thought is, you keep treating these kids like they are criminals and they will start to act more like criminals.. maybe that's a part of what is going on in the inner city as well.


No, it makes sense.. it means we can protect schools but until we get to root cause, we can't just keep adding security.


Not even sure what to say about that.. I send my kids to school to learn, not be babysat.


Give them whatever excuse you want, they still need to pay for what they do, just like the lily white kids who commit crimes.

And there already is an epidemic, this is just going to make it worse.


I'm not going to talk much about what goes on at inner city schools because I've never been to one and I can only respond to things brought to my attention. If you would like to have a discussion about security at inner city schools, then let's do it. I won't even get upset at your repeated use of the phrase "lily white"...


What is it exactly that you think I'm trying to convince you of?

sometimes things get worse before it gets better.

and besides, you do everything you feel you have to do to protect your kids, whether its keeping an eye on who they hang out with, where they're going, and at what times.

yet when i and others do the same, namely, want to make sure our kids are protected in school, you have a problem with that.

people are tired of doing nothing. people are tired of "thoughts and prayers".

either way, something is gonna happen, either through more security at schools, or gun legislation.

hell, possibly both.

the argument against increased security at school is completely weak compared to the argument of more gun legislation.

because people on BOTH sides want their kids protected.

Please...BOTH sides could care less...UNTIL one of THEIR kids pays the price. They'll continue to spout off meaningless rhetoric all the while continuing to suck NRA you know what. How many shootings have there been already? What have BOTH sides done? That's right. NOTHING. Besides, you can write all the gun laws you want...criminals intent on bringing chaos and death could care less. They're going to get their guns and do what they want. Make sure the good guys can defend themselves and take out the bad guys. And IF the bad guys succeed and are caught, KILL them. None of this crap about a life sentence. Get rid of them. ASAP.

I agree.


No I don't. We are just discussing the best possible way to make it happen and we have some disagreement in regards to methods.. I do not have a single problem with you wanting to keep your kids safe.


Agreed. I am one of those people.


I can get behind some level of both... however my point is, that's a temporary fix which doesn't actually solve the problem... people (mostly kids) shooting other kids in school is the symptom.. the problem is why they want to, why they think that is the best (or last) option.... and that conversation isn't really occurring except for people screaming about needing more mental health services... why are kids today in such dire need of mental health services?


Again.. I agree.

After Parkland, video games back in critics' crosshairs

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018...airs/356654002/

In the wake of last week’s shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., critics of violent video games are again taking aim.

A neighbor of accused shooter Nikolas Cruz told the Miami Herald that Cruz “escaped his misery” by playing video games for as much as 15 hours a day. “It was kill, kill, kill, blow up something, and kill some more, all day,” he said.

Gary Abernathy, a Washington Post contributing columnist and publisher of the Hillsboro (Ohio) Times-Gazette, this week noted that modern action films, TV shows and video games "outdo themselves in depicting gun violence committed so casually and with such frequency that viewers become dangerously numb to it."

Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin last week posted a video to his Facebook page urging lawmakers and "anyone who's in a position of influence" to consider how to repair the nation’s cultural fabric, which he said is “getting shredded beyond recognition.” Speaking to a radio interviewer, Bevin blamed a "culture of death that is being celebrated" via violent video games, TV shows and music.

Conventional wisdom suggests there’s got to be a connection between violent games and violence — after all, such games became popular exactly as school shootings became nearly commonplace. And a few researchers have suggested that the games are “exemplary teachers of aggression.”

Not so fast, says Villanova University psychologist and researcher Patrick Markey. “All we can really say for sure is that there does not appear to be a link at this time between violent video games and school shootings,” he said. “And if there is a link, it goes in the opposite direction.”

That is, school shooters are actually less likely to be interested in violent games than their peers. A few, like Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho, had no interest at all — a fact that surprised his roommate, who “thought it was weird he didn’t play video games,” Markey said.

In fact, only about 20% of school shooters play video games, compared to about 70% of high school students overall.

Markey, co-author of the 2017 book Moral Combat: Why the War on Violent Video Games Is Wrong, said school shooters as a group “tend to do things that aren’t typical of their peers.” By now, typical teenage behaviors include playing video games, many of them violent. “It’s just a sign of a healthy childhood to do things that our peers do, even if parents don’t like it,” he said.

Previous research supports his assertion, suggesting that when violent games and media are released, real-life violence actually drops. In 2011, University of Texas economist Michael R. Ward and two colleagues found that higher rates of violent game sales actually coincided with a drop in crime — especially violent crime.

The perceived games-and-violence connection is nearly as old as the first-person-shooter video game itself. After the 1999 Columbine attack, victims’ families sued more than two dozen game makers, saying games such as Doom, a first-person shooter that teen gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold played, desensitized them to violence.

A judge dismissed the lawsuits because the games weren’t subject to product liability laws — they hadn’t “failed” like a badly wired toaster. But the lawsuits and post-Columbine uproar in Congress added to an already heated debate that had pushed the industry to adopt a ratings system similar to that of movies.

A year after Columbine, the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Department of Education looked at the habits of 41 school shooters, including Harris and Klebold. They found that five of them were interested in violent games, but that twice as many liked violent movies and books. The largest group, more than one in three, exhibited an interest in a different kind of violent media: Their own writings, such as poems, essays and journal entries.

Twelve years later, in the wake of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association, criticized the video game business as a “callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and sows violence against its own people."

But when Connecticut State Police investigated in 2013, they found a surprising video game link: Adam Lanza, the 20-year-old gunman, had obsessively played the popular arcade game Dance Dance Revolution, the Japanese arcade staple, for nearly a decade. Once he was old enough to drive, Lanza would spend all night in the lobby of a local movie theater, challenging others to beat him.

A subsequent report from the state Office of the Child Advocate noted that Lanza had been playing the game as far back as 2003, often dancing to the point of physical exhaustion. Investigators said this could have been a way for Lanza “to contain anxiety-producing impulses and thoughts.” One witness said the theater manager on occasion had to unplug the game to get Lanza to leave.

Other research has shown that countries that spend the most per-capita on video games have lower gun-related murder rates than the USA. Actually, our gun-related murder rate is about 20 times the average, and virtually every other nation — the ones that spend more on video games and those that spend less — have lower gun-related murder rates.

A few studies have shown that playing violent video games temporarily makes players more aggressive — in one 2009 study, playing Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance on a PlayStation prompted participants to offer spicier hot sauce to lab volunteers who said they didn’t like spicy foods. But the aggressive tendencies wore off within moments, researchers found.

In other words, Markey said, playing a game like Mortal Kombat might have a fleeting effect, but it “doesn’t alter us fundamentally.”

Actually, he said, policymakers need to stop debating these effects — in the face of years of research findings, such debates are problematic.

“I think we’re at a point now where it’s becoming dangerous,” Markey said. “The biggest danger we have is that we are using these types of studies — hot sauce and such — to distract from what could be real causes of violence. As a field, we know better at this point.”

Once again, the most logical person on this issue. Well said.

Blame everything you want to deflect away from what the real problem is....

j/c

In Florida, the police and the fbi....did they do due diligence? I don't know.

But things are getting serious.

In the last couple of days school districts around here - Wauseon, Bryan, North Central,Archbold, and Toledo, have called police due to notes found, or conversations had. (I won't go into detail on any of them because I dont' have facts - other than reports from local newspapers that don't give any details. I will say, in 1 situation, the FBI was called.)

In each situation, someone was detained.

There was another place somewhere in Ohio where a student shot himself in a school bathroom.

In Houston, someone was arrested for threats.


And, a young child (freshman) was taken from school in W. Virginia and put in a mental hospital for his writings just yesterday. I happen to know the kid, somewhat indirectly. (he's been a mess for a long time. Dad died a while back, but had nothing to do with him, mom is a druggie and lost parental rights.......he lived up here for a while back when his mom had custody and had a boyfriend here. The boy friend died in a bike accident - some of you may remember me posting about that.)

At a minimum, police are taking the threats seriously now, and going out immediately when a threat is made.


My daughter, just last night, was giving me the details of what she HEARD about 1 of the situations. A kid posted a picture of a gun on social media with a threat. "Dad, you'll never guess what happened then." I bet he got arrested. "Yep".

Things are all messed up. And yes, I blame lack of parenting on some part of it. I blame video games for some part of it. I blame society giving the impression in some situations that "It isn't my fault, it's someone else's fault." Participation trophies, the whole "I can do what I want" thing (goes back to lack of discipline IMO)

And, yes, in some part, the availability of guns. (I won't go into detail there, as I'd probably tick some people off)

I would have a lot more to say about school safety, but it wouldn't be conducive to good discussion. And I realize, sometimes my posts are antagonistic, and lead to poor discussion at best, and just bad discussion at worst.


Most of the places I listed above are what most would consider 'rural' schools.

Our school, as everyone I know of around here, have locked doors. AFTER the school day starts. And BEFORE the school day ends. Otherwise?

To get in, you have to push a buzzer which goes to the secretary who can see who you are through a camera. And, of course, the doors are glass.

I need to stop now.

The problem with this article is a couple of things. One, they are looking at people "interested" in it, as in "obsessed". What they aren't looking at is children that have been desensitized to it via a combination of TV, movies and video. They also seem to cherry pick data and also make a weak correlation to crime and video games. Video Game sales have gone up, but violent crime has gone down. The could be due to a number of factors. You could also argue that as violent video game content has increased, so have the number of school shootings.

Video games are just a small aspect of it. I think tv and movies play a bigger role. Look no further than Columbine. At the end of March 1999, the Matrix was released and everybody loves the scene where Neo pops through security in a trench coat and guns everybody down. One month later, Columbine happens. Were those kids "obsessed" with violent movies? I don't know. But I think it still played a part into what they ended up doing.

The problem is you're talking about psychopaths that are one in a million. When you have 70 million-some kids in the country, it starts to become a prevalent problem. So if we reduce the exposure those 70-million some kids have to violent media, guns and other triggering issues, it becomes less of a problem.

One of my concerns is that everybody says mental illness is the big issue.

Didn’t we as society create that problem due to drugging our kids to behave instead of disclipining them to behave?

I remember my mom arguing with one of my teachers in middle school about putting on Ritalin. It seems like that’s the auto recommendation from local school districts.

We always talk about how kids are unable to cope with reality, yet nobody ever looks in the mirror as to why that’s a problem to begin with. Cause we didn’t teach them how to move in life. We just drugged them up and put them into a bubble, just trying to shield them from the horrors of society.

I also don’t buy the “video games and movies” rhetoric. Again, we keep acting like we’re the only country with violent movies and video games. Plenty of countries around the world also play the same games and watch the same movies as they do. In Germany, they show boobs on TV, none of the music is censored on he radios the cuss on tv, and have really weird violent psychopath movies.

Yet they don’t have mass shootings or school shootings anywhere close to what we have. And that’s most developed countries, btw.

Other countries have high gun ownership as well (such as Norway) and they don't have a high number of school shootings. So I guess access to guns can't be blamed either?

Honestly, everything is going to have to be looked at here. It's really a multitude of things that have caused a culture of this. Lack of a family structure which causes two working parents, no discipline and a high level of divorce is probably a huge contributor. Add to that the desensitization of violence from media, where children think the only way to solve a problem is through violent means. Then top it off with the media attention these shooters get when a shooting happens (contrasted to the lack of attention they get at home), it seems like a perfect storm.

When fact checked:

“Yes, there’s a high percentage of gun ownership in Norway," she says, "but those guns are used mainly one week in the year during the hunting of elk season ... the rest of the year it’s locked down and stored.”

Even US and Norwegian law enforcement have different approaches to firearms.

“The police has not been armed in Norway,” Seierstad says. “People in the US could say, ‘Well, isn’t that scary?’ Well when the police is not armed, the drug dealer is not armed, the criminals are not armed, because no one is armed.”

https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-06-16/what-can-us-learn-norways-gun-laws

They have stricter laws than we do. Also, why is the culture different?

Other than the rate of ownership, there is no equivalence between us and Norway.

Great. Now, tell me, how do we unarm the criminals?

Disarming the cops would be easy. How do we disarm the bad guys?

We have a way of glorifying violence in this country. Its part of the culture.

There is a lot of ground in that topic.

As far as school shootings are concerned...it started with Columbine. Those disenfranchised kids...who feel left out of their peer group..and have violent tendencies (NOT mental illness) They tend to glorify the Columbine asshats.

Stop making this the biggest topic ever and kids will stop seeking it out.

It’s literally impossible for a mass shooting at a public school in America to not be the biggest topic. Every time those shootings happen, it’s also being reported around the world.

We have enough censorship as it is for people to NOT be aware of what’s going on in their country.

Even the ownership between US/Norway isn't at all related. Gun ownership per 100k people is estimated 31.3 in norway, which is not that off from other european nations, versus 101 in the USA. USA is #1 in ownership and firearm deaths by a fair bit in the western world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country

Then its a self fulfilling prophecy.

It will never be solved.

Either address the culture issue or accept it. Because it wont change.

Alternatively find a way to integrate these fringe kids. (No idea how)

Medicating kids for any and all "abnormal" behavior certainly is something to consider. I think Vers touched on a lot of the other things I think we should be talking about.. lack of socialization, etc. I know many of the "old folks" talk about how we had bullying when we were kids, we had loners when we were kids, we had outcasts when we were kids... I honestly think all of those things we had, are exaggerated 1000x worse with social media.

Look, when I was a kid, if you wanted to bully another kid, you had to have the stones (and lack of heart) to stand in front of them and say it... you had to look them in the eye and be a douchebag right to their face.. at least the kid being bullied knew who was doing it and had the ability to respond if they wanted to... now we have these internet bullies who just sit in their bedroom at night and do it online.. then dozens, sometimes hundreds, of other gutless punks join in the bullying.. and nobody ever has to look the victim in the eyes.. nobody sees the emotional impact of what they are doing...

And loners.... everybody is 100% connected now via social media, just another way for loners to feel excluded.. so they go online looking for empathy and all too often that's when they find these sites encouraging violence, encouraging suicide, etc..

A couple years ago I caught my daughter posting something on Instagram.. she showed me where all of her friends were doing it.. post a picture of yourself and ask if people like your outfit... while that sounds harmless enough.. they begin to gauge their self worth based on the number of likes or compliments they get... I got 200 likes and Haley only got 12.. then I read through some of them and other kids were just ripping these poor girls apart, you look like a fat cow.. that shirt looks like my grandmothers drapes... it was freaking brutal and these kids were trying to find validation by fishing for compliments. This is another thing kids did in my day, you would often see the best kid in art make a project and then they would tell you it was awful. They knew it wasn't awful, they just wanted YOU to tell them it was great.. soothe their ego.. again, online you can multiply that by 1000.. but online people don't feel compelled to tell you it's good, they are much more comfortable in their anonymity to tell you it sucks... and you suck.. and art is stupid anyway.

I know your kids are young bro, but I'm telling you that social media for adolescents, especially in those middle school +/- years when they are just naturally confused about the world and where they fit in and they are insecure about what is going on around them.. social media is a damn minefield. It can build you up and it can tear you down in a heartbeat.. and you apply that to kids who are already going through that awkward stage of life where they are just trying to figure out who they are... It can absolutely break a kid if they don't know how to control it... I'm telling you, it's what I (and others my age) went through x1000..

Heck, just the FOMO is a big part as well.. you take a kids phone for a couple days and they go into withdrawals.. like they are going to become outcasts even if they have good friends because they aren't there to like the posts and share the memes for a couple days... like their friends will forget all about them or something... I can tell you this because I asked my daughter once, if I was to discipline you and you had to choose... I take your phone for a week but you can still go hang out and do the stuff you do.. or... you are grounded for a week but get to keep your phone... in her mind it wasn't even close, don't take my phone even if it means I can't leave the house.

I'm 100% convinced that is a large part of what is causing the steep increase in anxiety, depression, suicide, and violence in high school kids..

Gun ownership percentages mean nothing, really.

I know many, many people that own between 10 and 100 guns. I know many many people that own no guns.

If a person owns 20 guns, and his neighbor owns 0 guns, a stat, while legit, would say the average ownership of guns is 10.

What percentage of guns are used in crimes? Or, more specifically since all anyone cares about is school shootings: What percent of guns are used in school shootings?



And then compare that to what percentage of guns owned are NOT used in school shootings, or in crimes.

I can go with that thought.

Go out in public sometime. Notice how many people have their heads buried in their phones, totally oblivious to the life around them.

Don't get enough 'likes' on whatever social media you're on? You step it up, right?

I completely agree. We've seen a sudden uptick in school shooting in just the last 20 years, and things are usually cause and effect related. What's changed in the last 20 years?

- In my opinion, gun ownership hasn't changed much at all. We haven't seen a massive upswing in it among kids that we know of. I could be wrong. If anything, it probably has gone down.

- Divorce and no "stay-at-home" parenting. I would say this has increased quite a bit, but it was also a problem 30-40 years ago when school shooting didn't happen. I'd be curious to see the stats of this put up against a timeline.

- Movie violence/sexual exposure has gone way up. Watch an R-Rated movie from the 80's and compare it to one from today.

- Add to that, video game violence has become much more vivid due to better hardware. When you shot a pixel across the screen 30 years ago and the blob it hit on the other side exploded, it wasn't as graphic as the stuff you see rendered now. Remember, after WW2 (and other wars), guys came home with severe shell shock due to the horrors of war that they witnessed. Now we recreate that kind of stuff in movies and video games and willingly show it to our children, and honestly expect that it will have zero impact on them?

- The internet has taken off, and you covered this pretty well DC. The real expansion of the internet started in the last 1990's, and the first major school shooting was 1999. Since then, social media has only increased.

- Medicating children. Swish brings up a good point and I wonder how much of a role this has played in previous shooters. Although I also wonder how much of this could be a result due to some of the previous items I mentioned?

I have recently started to become aware that a "Youtuber" is a thing.. it's a profession.

For those who may not know.... People make Youtube channels, most of them are harmless, they post youtube videos regularly and they have subscribers who watch them.... Youtube is free so it's free to watch... My daughter is a subscriber to several and I check them out fairly regularly to see what she is watching... if a kid is into these things, they can have tremendous influence over your kids... Everybody in the top 10 of youtubers made over $10 million last year, with the top guy being at $16.5 million.. these folks have tens of millions of subscribers who watch everything they do and say... and most parents have no idea who they are..

Divorce and broken families happen throughout the western world. Religion is becoming less and less popular in households throughout the west (and the Chinese government is essentially atheist). Mental health is an issue throughout the western world (and increasingly in the east). Drug and alcohol addiction are issues throughout most of the world. Internet and social media are used and abused just as often in much of the world as it is in America. Throughout the world there are also people who do not value human life.

Movie violence has definitely become more graphic, but the violence shown in the 70s and 80s was worse than the decades before it. As we become desensitized we get more graphic and our urge to see more gore needs to be appeased. I also agree that ultra violent video games literally bring zilch to our culture and many of these are banned in other countries. And, I agree that medicating kids is an American phenomenon.

However, what we also have that NONE of these countries have is the ease to purchase weapons. 8 million people in the US apparently own an AR15...a weapon that's sole purpose is the kill mass amounts of people. It wasn't made for hunting, nor for single shot target practice. It was made to inflict mass carnage. And, we have a powerful lobby group called the NRA who give millions to politicians to not stand against them.

And then we wonder why these things happen over and over and over again.