Virginia Gun Owners Forum - VGOF

17 years old, .22 handgun "legally purchased" (by whom?), 10 rounds, 5 people hit, 3 died.

There's a whole lot wrong with this, and it makes me sick, and it makes me mad. He shouldn't have had the gun, the .22 shouldn't have done that much damage (I know, no info yet about rounds per person, location of hits, etc), metal detectors at most urban schools would have stopped him at the entrance, lots of people with concealed weapons would not likely have stopped him, we don't want this to happen because it's bad and it makes it harder for us, too, and there is going to be more of it because people are getting weirder. Bummer. Double bummer. Stinks.

allingeneral wrote:WTF is wrong with kids these days? (rhetorical) Society makes me sad.

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A lot of stuff is wrong. But I think the two primary problems are (1) parents don't pay enough attention to kids anymore and for too many of them "discipline" is just a word in the dictionary, and (2) the stuff kids are exposed to on TV, in movies and in video games is a non-stop diet of depravity and irresponsibility (concerning all kinds of behavior including gun-handling) the like of which kids couldn't even imagine (and wouldn't dare talk out loud about if they DID imagine it) when I was a kid. I am appalled at what my grandson is exposed to daily in this way. I would have come down on his daddy like a ton of bricks if I'd caught him at that stuff when he was that age. But grandson's daddy just shrugs it off, saying "Ah, Dad, they all do it". In most ways, I have a lot of influence with #1 son, but on this subject I am a voice in the wilderness.

I also think people are becoming too emotionally fragile. So you get bullied. So you get picked on. Is that an excuse to go postal? (By the way - the very existence of that phrase is symptomatic of what I'm talking about) Are kids so easily driven over the edge as that; and if so, why? I seem to remember many occasions as a kid where you either did more than half the fighting or carried home an @ss-whupping; but even in a time where more than a few kids had their squirrel or deer hunting weapons in their cars in the school parking lot, nobody even dreamed of gunplay. It was literally unTHINKable.

I think back then you were expected to and did display a certain degree of mental toughness. If you were seen to not take your whuppin' and suck it up, it was a lot worse than losing a fight. And even if you ran home and cried into mommy's apron, your daddy would quietly take you out back and let you know he wasn't raising any damn sissies (if, indeed, mommy didn't do it). They'd have been mortified to run to the Principal to fight your battles for you; and even if they had done so, you'd be ruined with the other kids for the rest of your life. Your parents might as well have stopped on the way home from the principal’s office and bought you some pink panties with lace.

Maybe it's the victim mentality the liberals have been pushing for the last few generations bleeding into everything. Or maybe it's that namby-pamby "no confrontation/no-winners-no-losers” brand of political correctness lunacy that we keep reading about. But for some or probably all of those reasons, it looks to me like today's parents are raising a crop of whiney-@ssed, emotionally unstable wussies.

Am I that out of touch, or has the younger generation just gone to hell on this point?

metal detectors at most urban schools would have stopped him at the entrance

So what? You a a huge line of people and he could just take his shots then.

Jakeiscrazy wrote:...he could just take his shots then.

Agreed. Metal detectors would not have stopped him if he already had a gun at school, all a metal detector would do is force his hand there instead of further inside the building. Our school district does not use police officers as resource officers because they think that would be too upsetting to the parents, so instead they rotate the teachers through front door duty... the teachers call it "target duty" or something similar.

OBTW it's CHARDON, OH pronounced sharden

"Lane told authorities he stole the gun from his uncle, a source told CNN on Tuesday."

Sorry about the spelling of the town/HS. I was born not far from there (Akron), I should know better.

dorminWS wrote:I also think people are becoming too emotionally fragile. So you get bullied. So you get picked on. Is that an excuse to go postal? (By the way - the very existence of that phrase is symptomatic of what I'm talking about) Are kids so easily driven over the edge as that; and if so, why? I seem to remember many occasions as a kid where you either did more than half the fighting or carried home an @ss-whupping; but even in a time where more than a few kids had their squirrel or deer hunting weapons in their cars in the school parking lot, nobody even dreamed of gunplay. It was literally unTHINKable.

It is the zero tolerance crap that the schools are espousing these days. If you lift one finger in self defense you are as guilty as the person who started it. So now if you get bullied you have two choices, take it till the bully gets tired or put the bully in his/her place and get suspended from school possibly expelled for fighting. We would be much better off if the gym teacher took are of business by putting the two students together with boxing gloves and let them swing at each other till their arms are too tired to swing any more.
I guess the question is what do you expect kids who have raging horomones to do when they turn one way and they get bullied by a fellow student and they turn the other and get bullied by the school administration. With no outlet they are just going to explode.
I am not saying that shooting up a school is excusable, because it is not. But the current school policies are actually making things worse than better. And the School Administrators bear just as much responsibility (and blood on their hands) for this incident as the student who pulled the trigger.

There is a lack of God in society. That void will be filled by something.

Wallace wrote:
There is a lack of God in society. That void will be filled by something.

It's my understanding that the school day used to begin with prayer. When I entered the world in the late 70's, that practice had been banned. However, looking back on national history, just the past 100 years, it seems that things started getting bad right after that prayer banning. Anyone else notice that?

SHMIV wrote:

Wallace wrote:
There is a lack of God in society. That void will be filled by something.

It's my understanding that the school day used to begin with prayer. When I entered the world in the late 70's, that practice had been banned. However, looking back on national history, just the past 100 years, it seems that things started getting bad right after that prayer banning. Anyone else notice that?

School prayer was banned in 1962, the same year that John Glenn orbited the earth, the Lutheran Church in America was formed, the first Walmart store opened, the Rolling Stones debuted, the Cuban Missile Crisis took place, and the Vietnam War started going seriously downhill. I'm not at all sure you can identify things going south as starting in 1962 (it has been kind of continuous since WWII), nor that school prayer was the cause.

I never said that it was the sole cause of anything.

Also, I expected everyone to know what I meant by saying "things"; I probably ought not post while groggy. My apologies for that silly vagueness. I shall rephrase:

It seems that the prayer ban of 1962 may have accelerated the decay of moral fortitude within the U.S. citizenry.

I agree that it has been continuous since WWII, and probably earlier. It just seems the youth got more rebellious after the prayer banning, is all.

SHMIV wrote:It seems that the prayer ban of 1962 may have accelerated the decay of moral fortitude within the U.S. citizenry.

I agree that it has been continuous since WWII, and probably earlier. It just seems the youth got more rebellious after the prayer banning, is all.

I understand the point you are trying to make, but I don't think your supposition ("the prayer ban of 1962 may have accelerated the decay of moral fortitude") is testable, at least by saying the youth have gotten more rebellious. LOTS of things have contributed to the decay, and to the rebellion, and unraveling which things have been the main contributors, or even just contributors, is problematic. I'd maybe put lack of parental guidance from the Baby Boomer parents, and the me-generation that followed, as big factors, and I'd ascribe much of that to TV and then the internet.

No, it isn't really testable. It's worth noting, though, that those baby-boomer parents that fail to guide were the first generation to experience the prayer free schools. Back then, TV wasn't anywhere near what it is today, and the internet was non-existent.

Those baby-boomers became the hippies that looked down on anyone over 30, got the whole "if it feels good, do it" ball rolling, etc. Granted, before the hippies, there were the beat-nicks, but that was nowhere near the movement that the hippy movement was.

And, sure, there were other contributing factors, I was merely pointing to that prayer banning as one of them, and stating my opinion that it was a rather major factor. But, as you said, and I've agreed, it's not exactly a testable theory.

Despite popular folk lure our schools are not "prayer free". Take it from me, I got to a public high school. And the administration is no more at fault than anyone else. It's called personal responsible for a reason. He did the crime he alone bears full responsibly.

Jakeiscrazy wrote:Despite popular folk lure our schools are not "prayer free". Take it from me, I got to a public high school. And the administration is no more at fault than anyone else. It's called personal responsible for a reason. He did the crime he alone bears full responsibly.

So you do not think he is a product of his environment? Technically he is a minor. At what age does someone begin to be responsible for their own actions? If he was 10, would he still bear sole resposibillity? Or would the parents be a fault to some degree?

Wallace wrote:

Jakeiscrazy wrote:Despite popular folk lure our schools are not "prayer free". Take it from me, I got to a public high school. And the administration is no more at fault than anyone else. It's called personal responsible for a reason. He did the crime he alone bears full responsibly.

So you do not think he is a product of his environment? Technically he is a minor. At what age does someone begin to be responsible for their own actions? If he was 10, would he still bear sole resposibillity? Or would the parents be a fault to some degree?

He knew perfectly well and good that the actions he was committing were wrong.

Jakeiscrazy wrote:Despite popular folk lure our schools are not "prayer free". Take it from me, I got to a public high school. And the administration is no more at fault than anyone else. It's called personal responsible for a reason. He did the crime he alone bears full responsibly.

Ok Jake, let me ask you this. If I tell you that you cannot lift a finger to defend yourself from an attack and if you do I will lock you up for a year. Then whose responsibility is it to keep you safe. Does it not become my responsibility to provide you protection? That is exactly what public schools have done today with their "Zero Tolerance" policies. If you are physically attacked and you lift one finger in self defense, then you can be expelled. Guess what that means, you get to start that grade all over again the following year and you are back under their thumb again. (Remember it is the government that requires you to go to school.)

As I said before that the student should be held accountable for his actions. But the administration should also be held accountable as well.

Jakeiscrazy wrote:

Wallace wrote:

Jakeiscrazy wrote:Despite popular folk lure our schools are not "prayer free". Take it from me, I got to a public high school. And the administration is no more at fault than anyone else. It's called personal responsible for a reason. He did the crime he alone bears full responsibly.

So you do not think he is a product of his environment? Technically he is a minor. At what age does someone begin to be responsible for their own actions? If he was 10, would he still bear sole resposibillity? Or would the parents be a fault to some degree?

He knew perfectly well and good that the actions he was committing were wrong.

It was wrong according to who?

totes6 wrote; It is the zero tolerance crap that the schools are espousing these days. If you lift one finger in self defense you are as guilty as the person who started it. So now if you get bullied you have two choices, take it till the bully gets tired or put the bully in his/her place and get suspended from school possibly expelled for fighting. We would be much better off if the gym teacher took are of business by putting the two students together with boxing gloves and let them swing at each other till their arms are too tired to swing any more.

I agree wholly with this,,It seems nowadays the kids have conflicting thoughts at every turn, Stand up for yourself and they practically send the kid to jail.. Punching the SOB in the mouth worked in my day even if you lost the fight they thought twice about a second go around, About the worst thing you would get is detention...I can remember teachers that would actually clear an area in a classroom if two wanted to go at it and let em go till they cooled down... That always seemed to put an end to it.. Knock the hell out of each other, then shake hands and move on with your life... This stuff today is actually counterproductive in the amount of loose cannons it produces,,