[ilbegone]

Originally Posted by Ayatollahgondola

I can remember back when I was 5 or 6 years old (the late 50's), and at least two separate incidents of teens pulling knives on other students at what used to be Sac High school. Those teens probably didn't have guns is all. It's not new, but what is new is the grander population. There were bad kids back when I was in junior high, including one kid who robbed the doughnut shop next to the school, and got in a running gunfight with a cop. Both were shot. I don't think school shootings are not new per se, but rather a ratio that is becoming more publicized. We are getting more jammed together, so more restricted by our own expansion, and eventually a pipe bursts.

I will concede that there were bad apples in the 50's. However, the 50's were not anything like what's going on now.

We have broken homes, single parent families, parents who might take the kids to soccer practice but otherwise ignore them (go play with your toys!), and in spite of all the modern politically correct vilification of the old Warner brothers cartoons with Foghorn Leghorn and the Dog whacking each other on the ass with two by fours, there is much more gratuitous graphic glorification of violence available through the media for consumption by children than there ever was before 1980.

It's a different world now.