“What’s the difference between yesteryear and today? The logic of the argument for those calling for stricter gun control laws, in the wake of recent school shootings, is that something has happened to guns. Guns have behaved more poorly and become evil. Guns are the problem.
“The job for those of us who are 65 or older is to relay the fact that guns were more available and less controlled in years past, when there was far less mayhem. Something else is the problem.
“Guns haven’t changed. People have changed. Behavior that is accepted from today’s young people was not accepted yesteryear.” – Walter Williams in Past Vs. Present Americans [via triblive.com]
I don’t believe we’ve become more violent as a whole; but that our definition of what violence is has changed. It is no longer acceptable and no longer ignored to smack around your wife. Today we rightfully call that domestic violence and look poorly upon it. It is no longer acceptable for two boys to go at it on the playground, even amongst their own peers; however, it is acceptable to SWAT them from the comfort of their couches.
YouTube is flooded with videos of boys and girls going at it in a playground (and other places).its entertainment for some people they think it’s fun and funny.
Absolutely right !! Why is it when I was in high school & college , there were no school kids being shot up like targets at a range ? It may have something to do with single parent ” mother ” no father , situations where dad is in jail or nonexistent. The old saying spare the rod , spoil the child. Its factual. Kids these days , young people with addictive video games where the object is : kill as many as you can. These things have led to a different generation of young people growing up in a a kind of world where they think killing is cool. News flash it’s not cool , when your dead you don’t hit reset button & come back , you stay dead. Last I knew guns are inanimate objects , until some disturbed individual decides to hurt another with one. Guns are no different. People are , fix them !!
With all do respect: I’m sick of this attitude that video games are one of the main problems with the percieved “epidemic” of school shootings. You can’t desensitize someone to violence through video games; multiple studies and research have proven it doesn’t work like that. It’d be like preparing someone for the sensation and feeling of skydiving by showing them a video of it. The NRA has ran with this narrative and they’re abandoning an entire generation of young shooters like myself who see Oliver North and LaPierre as complete wastes of time. If you or they had any idea how many of the younger generation were out there who were interested in this industry thanks to games like Halo, Call of Duty, and PUBG but weren’t “brought into the fold” so to speak because the mentality is the 60 and 70 year olds are the only ones who have money and donate. Sorry for my rant, but if the industry wants a new generation of shooters to keep it afloat it can’t continue with blaming video games.
I agree with you Evan. One other thing the NRA hasn’t thought of but my four teenage boys who both hunt/shoot and play video games including COD, CSGO, etc is who they play. In many of these “violent” videos they are playing kids in Japan and Korea. I fact many of the very best players (translated kids who have spent tens of thousands of hours playing these games) are from Korea and Japan. So if violent video is the root cause why are there not hundreds of mass shootings in those two countries alone? Because they have nearly zero access to firearms? Careful NRA you will paint yourself into a corner with the violent video game arguement.
And as a sidebar, I sometimes play video games with my sons. I truly suck at playing them but I enjoy seeing different firearms in the games and talking about them with my sons. It has lead to conversations about different models and even about military tactics.
Excellent point on the Korean and Japanese game players.
having lived and worked in Japan, and having had spent a lot of time in Korea, as well as being a gamer, I have to tell you that per capita sales or realistic first person shooters are lower there. the claim that Japanese and Korean kids play as much as US kids is simply not true. those kids play more abstract games.
And what the science shows u sis realistic FPS video games have an effect, just not the same way most people think. with the 99% of kids who don’t have some kind of major underlying condition there is in no negative effect, but for a very small minority of kids there is sustained affect.
I do agree that NRA is off a bit on this, younger cohorts, 30-40 year olds and especially 20 to 30 year olds are LESS likely to support gun bans on semi auto rifles than older cohorts, in fact average out 10 years the ONLY group to support AR ban by a majority over 60 year olds.
What the entire FPS video game issue and gun control lessons learned teach us is that the huge majority of people playing games, as w2ell as 95% of people owning guns (or about 99.6% of legal gun owners) never harm anyone and are net reducers of violence in their jurisdictions and nationally. Same as game players.
We need to concentrate on the tiny minorities with mental health issues. But since the mentally ill murder with knives as often, and at a hugely elevated rate over the general population — the issue is no any given implements but treatment
I was stationed in S. Korea for a year and worked and lived alongside Katusas, granted it doesn’t make me an expert, but I can share my observations. It was over a decade ago, barely on the cusp of the “smart phone” era, but we’ll within the bit torrent and first person shooter game era. First person shooter, and pornography consumption was rampant, and I mean rampant, to the point of not showing up to morning formation (2nd only to booze). Porn addiction was the number one problem dealt with by the Army’s chaplain system, over alcohol (second). There was also a high degree of sexual resentment among young S. Korean males toward U.S. personnel who, “get all the girls” and freely partake in prostitution, while they did not, even though they could. I’t would be interesting to study what affect military and law enforcement conscription / mandatory service in Korea and Japan have on male development.
“multiple studies and research have proven”
Multiple studies and research have generated more bvllshit than la corrida de toros.
Video games by themselves are harmless. I’m not sure they’re harmless as a part of the most toxic culture I have ever lived through in America, and that includes the Vietnam era.
Ralph, as usual, is on point. It is not the games themselves, but they are a part of a cultural shift in what is considered acceptable. Movies , music and television have also grown more explicit in content and violence. Behavior once considered abhorrent is glorified in the entertainment industry.
I know it’s anecdoteal, but my 8 year old recently got in trouble at school for saying he would kill someone. They were playing a game and he got mad. Was it because he watched me play Titanfall or because he played Minecraft? I don’t know for sure but somehow the idea that saying he would kill someone who upset him was okay. He was not allowed to play games for a long time and we talked about his choice of words. You really believe all the 7 to 14 year olds playing GTA, COD and the like are not affected? Throw in the toxicity of anonymous online gaming and you take it to a whole new level.
I think, a a whole, our culture had lost its moral compass.
I have nothing but a vague guess as to your age. As a 52 year old, lemme help ya.
Boys/young men “threaten” to ‘kill each other’ on a regular basis. Have since the 1930’s (and before!). Part of actually growing up to be a man, not a soy-boy. We did it, our fathers did it, and so did grandad.
Nobody actually killed anyone.
You might be onto something with the negative influence of online gaming. I think social media/online interactions in general are destroying society. I’m in my late 30’s now; I grew up playing hours and hours of Mortal Kombat 1 & 2. I can’t tell you the number of fatalities I performed. I played first person shooters like Doom and Rise of the Triad on my computer when I was 15 years old. In Rise of the Triad, if you wounded a guy, he would beg for his life. You could either spare him or blow his head off while he begged. Our computer was in the same room (our den) which had a rack of guns on the wall – 2 shotguns and 2 rifles. I grew up in a quasi-rural village, the guns weren’t locked up. I never killed anyone or even thought about it.
So it ain’t the games by the themselves, you’ve got that right.
16V
I’m in my mid 30’s where and when I went to high school up if a kid threatened to kill an other one you’d better have your head on a swivel waiting for the bus after school and be listening for the squeal of tires. Growing up in an upper middle class white neighborhood (still went to a bad school that’s how LAUSD works) my neighbor 2 doors down, a ‘nam vet threatened to kill his wife weekly for years, guess what? One night he got drunk and did her, then himself. I wen’t to school with “boys” that fought pretty often, not crime or gang violence, just fighting between boys, middle class white kids from intact families, most of them ended up in the pen or dead by there 30’s. Your Pollyannish notion that growing up using threats and tough talk to prove your not a “Soy Boy” is normal or healthy is something straight out of Mayberry. People that grow up indoctrinated to see threats and violence as a normal part of being a man very often live their lives that way and pay the price.
Brevik spent an entire year playing violent video games as a preparation and to desensitize himself prior to the planned mass murder. The video games in themselves did not make him kill, but they were part of the package.
Peter Madsen liked to watch snuff videos. Him and Brevik both grew up in Scandinavian countries that are far less violent (especially toward women), and have a higher standard of living than our own. Paddock’s brother had a penchant for child porn. Paddock himself was a mathematical savant, but an emotional dullard. Most mass shooters fall somewhere on the autism spectrum, their forensic biography’s are pretty consistent and not all that dissimilar to serial killers. About 40% of mass shooters are white males in there late 30’s to early 60’s, not high school kids. There is clearly a strong genetic component to the phenomenon. But yes, something seems to be “turbo charging” the phenomenon the last twenty years or so. Forensic biography of many of them reveal from there own words that it is media coverage. That is consistent with the rise of 24 hour news cycle “infotainment” and social media in the last 20 years.
You are mostly Correct. What the science shows us is realistic FPS video games have an effect, just not the same way most people think. with the 99.5% of kids who don’t have some kind of major underlying condition there is in no negative effect, but for a very small minority of kids there is sustained effect.
To me this is like showing that 1 out of 100 of kids playing some crash driving games is desensitized or has elevated aggression behind the wheel. it is important data, should be noted, but the answer is not the video games — nor is more the answer gun control (sine the mentally ill kill more people with non gun means) , but more mental health care for this subset
Sweden is far less violent toward women? It is profoundly misogynist with one of the highest rape rates in the world, certainly higher than the US
I appreciate the view point of your well articulated response. While I disagree with your assertion that Sweden has a higher “rape” rate than that of the U.S. (I won’t bother debating it. Stats for the the U.S. are hard enough to decipher, let alone that of a foreign culture) . I agree that most forms of gun control being proposed at large would have some but very negligible effect on rates of mass shootings here in the U.S., especially among the the 40% of grown independent white men I referenced. But an argument for personal responsibility is apre peau. Parents: Self monitor your childs behavior online or otherwise. If you believe your child to be in psychological distress; lock up your guns; that could at least have a statistically measurable effect on the body count.
I worked in a Level I psychiatric hospital for over two decades. Had more than one patient act out violent video games. Anyway, that is merely anecdotal. Here is a deadly example:
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2015/09/playing_violent_video_games_ma.html
“Kids these days , young people with addictive video games where the object is : kill as many as you can. These things have led to a different generation of young people growing up in a a kind of world where they think killing is cool.”
There is no empirical (i.e., legitimate=real) scientific evidence that playing violent video games causes otherwise normal individuals to do things (like act violently or actually kill people) that they wouldn’t ordinarily do This has been discussed, argued about, politicized, and researched for decades and the one fact that is always made clear is that there is no causal linkage between violent video games (or videos, or music, or stories) and a change in one’s predisposition to commit mayhem. Simply put there is no magical trigger that causes normal folks to do crazy stuff. When people commit violent acts, they are doing so because they want to and not because some video game forced them to. The reason people want to do violent things because of a lifetime of learning has taught them to want to do violent things.
so we AGREE with the NRA which has said is the effect on SOME kids. Yes it has no affect on otherwise normal. Just like guns owned by normal people, in fact lowers crime and violence rates, and make a household safer, not more dangerous.
BUT the science also clearly shows that the highly transient elevated aggression when a normal kid plays a hyper realistic FPS is less transient and has more of an effect on the kids with a very serious mental illness (1/200 to 1/500)
I think the NRA position is valuable, since it turns around claims by Hollywood and gaming industry that this is all about actual guns, when it is not about that either.
What wee need to concentrate is on kids with serious mental illness. not because they shoot people, but also because they stab people and because they are much more likely to become violent adults, rather than limit everyone freedom on guns or games, neither of which cause any elevated violence rate whatsoever for virtually all owners.
Guns have always been ubiquitous in the US, but mass shooting and school shootings have not. Sure, there have always been the relatively rare but infamous episodes in our history, but it’s clear something changed after Columbine. Perhaps it started earlier with the intentional destruction of the family unit by the Neo-Marxist, Post Modernists Liberal Terrorists™️ Those same “people” also minimized the value of human life to disposable status through their insistence of abortion as the preferred form of birth control. The one thing that has remained constant though, throughout, is the extremely low rates of criminality found within the demographics of legal gun owners and specifically NRA members. And, but of course, the Post Modernists, who thrive on obfuscating and manipulating facts to suit their agenda, use us as the scapegoats instead of looking at the real source of criminality in the US.
The Left’s agenda has no margin for truth or fixing problems and, I say, their doctrine of “no personal accountability” is a big part of this any many other problems.
“Being on the Left means never having to say you were wrong or are sorry.”…..Dennis Prager
And never taking responsibility for one’s actions. It ‘ s always some one or something else’s fault. ” Thou Shalt Not Kill ” is foreign to them.
2 kids squaring off back of the schoolyard is normal and natural, it goes on all the time with mammals. That is how we determine pecking order. If we allow them to fight it out, each learns a lesson sooner than later, the lesson is that NO ONE WINS in a fight, one just hurts worse than the other.
We now separate little Johnnie and Junior(or even Mabel), they don’t learn this lesson and the feelings simmer until they are most of the way grown up. They know they do not know how to protect themselves from a bully, so they pick up a gun(like in their video games) and do violence or else want to make a name for themselves by shooting at the soch’s or the greasers(or whatever group they perceive is mean to them). Let them fight it out before puberty or at its onset and they get a black eye or a bloody nose – much better than getting shot or being the shooter at 17.
Golden gloves had always been an outlet for adolescent violent urges and a way for bullied kids to learn how to defend themselves. Today’s sissified culture frowns on kids squaring off in a controlled environment where they learn both courage and sportsmanship. Today’s kids are protected from such barbarism and our constrained yo kicking a ball around.
Soccer is the problem. Soccer is such a lame sport. When I was growing up, soccer was for the boys whose mother wouldn’t let them play football.
Mainstream feminism has morphed into a post-modernist philosophy that prohibits the display or promotion of masculinity and (for some strange reason) prohibits discipline or punishment of criminality.
Unfortunately, these feminists are in charge of the schools, child psychology, and social work (especially in state departments of child and family services).
Public schools in many areas of the country have become out of control because of this.
We need to stand up as a society and stop these people from continuing to be in charge of public policy regarding child rearing and education. They have clearly failed and it is dangerous to the country’s future to allow this to continue.
Well said. Modern schools have become decades long torture prisons for kids, especially boys. If you care about your kids you don’t put them in government run schools. Always vote against increasing funding for government schools.
As long as the government runs the schools ideological far-left feminists will find a way to be kept in charge of them. Privatize all the schools and let them compete for voucher money and suddenly they have an incentive to actually please the parents of the kids that are sent there. No more captive audience.
Wow, 40, 50 and 60 something year old chicks making 60 K a year teaching public school and doing social work, are really cock blocking you hugh dude? House wives and single mothers who put themselves through college in order to help impoverished children who otherwise might die of neglect; their really kicking your ass hugh? Maybe you need a gun or ten to protect yourself? I got about 20, cause I like ’em, not because I’m terrified of some vast “feminazi” cabal. I know it’s clichĂ©, and I’m sure you’ll state how much you already do,… but dude, you need to get laid more often.
I believe that he was referring to the feminists that are trying to control the teachers unions, not females in general.
By the way, where is Cisco Kid to complain about all us “gun worshiping redneck hillbillies that have sex with our sisters and are too stupid to realize how ignorant we are”?
Unrepentant Libertarian has it right.
My female neighbor teaches at a high school in one of the urban school districts mentioned in Kevin Williamson’s article.
There is no security or protection for these teachers. There are police in the schools but they are not allowed to get involved between teachers and students until after a violent crime has been committed. The teachers can’t discipline any of the students and; therefore, the students ignore or verbally (and sometimes physically) abuse the teachers. If a teacher tries to discipline a student, the teacher’s actions are immediately subject to review by the administration (which ususlly sides with the student).
Further, there are no academic standards (the teachers have little control over academics anymore) and the students go from grade to grade without performing academically.
The only reason the teachers keep their jobs or income is because of the teacher’s union and workers compensation (for injuries sustained from being assulted by students).
This devolution isn’t because of the actions of some female teachers, it is because the anti-male, anti-gun, anti-law & order, pro-criminal, radical feminist, leftist/Communist, post-modernists are in charge of the schools, juvenile criminal justice system, psychology, and social work (and control the teacher’s unions).
Wow!? What your describing based on second hand conjecture sounds like something out of Robo-Cop, or A Clock Work Orange! Because it is, it’s fiction, feed to you by the same demagogues you don’t even realize are controlling you. How do “over paid”, “unionized”, government employees and public servants, making what are today in a big city, barely middle class wages like myself, hold this Blade Runner-esque dystonian nightmare world together for the rest of y’all wal-mart shoppers. The answer is,… relatively easily, and without bitching about it half as much as you do as a detached observer. And without blaming women, teenagers, minority’s, the poor, the weakest among us. Going to work every day facing cold hard reality, without looking for scapegoats. Caring about society at large, putting in an honest weeks work to try and make the world a better place, one fuckin day at a time, instead of retreating in to cynicism and fantasy, you know,… like a real man would do. I’ve seen all 4 parts of the franchise; I don’t recall Max Rockatansky being a big whiny pussy that blamed women, children, unions or the government for his woes. If you don’t like shit they way it is, go become a public school teacher, a health and human services worker, a cop, run for office. C’mon now, don’t be scared, it’s not as bad out there as your neighbor says it is.
Bull moose you are simply wrong on all the facts and just throw around invective as a result. It is a very common feminist claim that the traditional family structure is irrelevant, when in fact: In terms of criminal violence we know for a certainty that kids who grow up without a father (and yes controlled for other demographic factors such as poverty) are WAY more likely to commit violent crime.
90 % of all of criminals, not just violent felons, all criminals, are men. I know, I deal with them every day. Yes, 80 plus percent of them grew up without a father figure. You really think that’s because their mother told their father ” I’m a feminist, I got this, take a hike.”? Na,ah. The 10% of criminals that are women are mostly victims of intimidation and manipulation by men, as part of organized crime, gang culture. Stop scapegoating women, it’s unbecoming of a man.
Bull Moose: It is that bad in the schools where my neighbor works. I work in education also and even the suburban districts are heading down the same path.
The policies that allowed the criminally mentally-ill Nicolas Cruz the opportunity to shoot up Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are the same policies that cause the problems my neighbor suffers from.
It is those that control policymaking that are the root cause of the problem. In education, that is the same nutty professors that spew all of the SJW and diversity/inclusion BS.
Promote and celebrate deviant behavior get more deviant behavior.
I hate to admit it, but Mom was right about the Marxists, Communists, Liberals, and Gays. They did not just want tolerance, they wanted to spread and force their moral bankrupt ideologies on everyone else. This is why the Christian Cake shops are so important to them.
Pat Moynihan’s last professional essay was titled “Defining Deviancy Down.”. He defined deviant behavior as more than sexual activities. He was talking about a broad range of social phenonemona to include normalization of drug use, single motherhood and “gangsta” culture. The promotion of cultural deviancy is not driven exclusively by what is conventionally defined by the left. Modern Libertarians have played an important role in undermining social stability by making cultural deviancy acceptable among conservatives. These faux Libertarians are really part of the leftwing culture differing only in their belief in markets and given a choice between lifestyle and markets faux Libertarians will place markets second.
Moynihan was more of a Republican than a Democrat on many issues. He was the only Democrat I respected at the time.
What has changed is the lack of education of our young.Through the Leftist’s and it’s organization the NEA,history,Civics and the Constitution have stopped being taught as those subjects once were.
If the young do not know their history and what their rights are it makes for a more compliant group of slaves,In order to have control,the U S must have Gun Control,for a disarmed population,It’s About Control.
He who controls the present, controls the past. he who controls the past, controls the future.
Then we (pro-Constitution/BOR supporters) need to get control of the present ASAP.
“The job for those of us who are 65 or older is to relay the fact that guns were more available and less controlled in years past, when there was far less mayhem. Something else is the problem.
Problems existed years ago, but either the frequency has increased or the media coverage has. It also seems that the snowflake and tide pod generation have become dysfunctional through safe space indoctrination by the communist pc pubic school system. The school and gang shootings have become a video game where the highest scorer wins street cred. Of course, the communists bend over backwards to ensure this crap happens through a variety of pc marxist thought and messages.
The Libertarians Liberals and the Left hated 1950s morality. The number of guns in the country has gone up. While the standards of conduct have gone down.
You got legal marijuana intoxication on the west coast. And a loss of gun civil rights in states that have legalized it. While growing up in California, I noticed the pot heads NEVER supported the second amendment. And they still don’t. Even tho some of them now understand why black pot dealers carried guns.
Question authority!
Your parents are just squares and don’t “understand the real world”.
Standards are out of step with today’s way of thinking!!!
Changing sexual standards brought us the Welfare Industrial Complex. And fewer men in the home to teach a child about guns, and many other things.
Soon the no longer “Boy” Scouts will be teaching sexuality classes and how not to get pregnant. They won’t be teaching children about Firearms education and Marksmanship. That is not the goal of the new leadership of the scouts organization.
Pat Buchanan was correct in his New Hampshire speech way back in the 1990s, when he said there is a cultural war in the United States. He was called a racist which he is not. But that is how distractions are created to get people to ignore the loss of their Liberty.
I don’t have the answers of today’s problems but being over 65 saw a lot of things in my life. Finishing high school in 1969 it was different. If a student was slapped off the head far talking in class , he did not dare go crying to mommy or daddy . If you ratted on someone you were scum of the earth. I saw kids get picked on in a good natured way but not bullied . Two kids got in a fight there wasn’t a gang jumping in or police involved . The combatants usually ended friends at some point because that’s what kids did.
Entering the Army after high school I went and serve in I Corps in Vietnam . After the military I was fortunate to become a firefighter and worked most of my career in the bad part of the city which was my choice. I saw a lot of domestic violence and in a lot of instances where the police would fight with the offender and the victim would attack the police. Early during that period domestic assaults were private matters and by law if the police were told to leave the had to.
If a criminal was violent they got the baton or mace . Now a violent offender just about needs to be wheeled to jail in a baby carriage . That is not to say that there weren’t sadistic cops . I remember one certain cop that if a guy had a beard he was in for it.
Twice I experienced kids losing their lives because their mothers went out clubbing and left their kids alone . Another incident was an 11 year old girl led her 5 year old brother out of their burning apartment with minor burns. There were no laws against that at that time because people just did not do that.
One night we had a guy in a drunken rage throw his baby at us . He got the living crap beat out of him. Now the cops would have been arrested and made national news and imprisoned.
I retired in 1994 . Now you can see the results of bad people being coddled and treated like endangered species. I don’t have the answer.
You want tax payer funded agents of state sanctioned violence administering extra judicial punishment out in the streets of America? Like the Philippines? Do you believe that the consequences of such a system could never affect you or some one you know or love? Do you believe that if innocent people are killed or have there lives irreparably harmed it is worth it for the “greater good”? While I certainly understand as part of your job you have been heavily exposed to the failings of or criminal justice systems you seem to opine for the days of L.A. Confidential, where Bud White rolled up 10-97 administered a quick beating or two (likely to an impoverished black or brown person) and 10-98 back to the tavern or whorehouse. Would you want a public school teacher to be able to strike your grand child, or perhaps even shoot them now a days, and have it come down to their word against your grand child’s? Thank you for your service btw. I love firefighters and cops and understand cops must often commit legally justifiable homicide in the course of there duties. But most major City’s existed under such a system for most of the 20th century. It lead to the riots and skyrocketing violence and drug crime that characterized American metropolis of the late 60’s through early 90’s. America now is relatively tranquil compared to your decades on duty (other than sections of Chicago and Baltimore). L.A., San Francisco and New York are all far better than when I was growing up. Homelessness and opioid’s are now the biggest problems but have not correlated to spikes in violent crime. The police and social reforms of the 90’s have much to do with this. Even my grand father, who pretty much was Bud White in real life, agreed with this and regretted much of his behavior during the “good ‘ol days” after he watched L.A. burn for the second time in his life.
We saw it we lived it . I guess that you didn’t . You listen to a person that raped , robbed , and murdered an elderly woman and scream ” I know my rights”! Do you know what it is like to be in combat ? When I figure out how to describe a color to a blind person I will let you know.
I couldn’t care less what your liberal point of view is . We survived .
I filled out a warranty form the other day . It asked my sex. Male , Female , don’t want to tell , and custom. See they invented a new one for you.
Alright man, no offense intended, look I hear you. I’m more like you than you know. I grew up worrying if I would get shot on any given day in high school. Joined the Army, did my tour in the sand box, worked local while going to school, then wen’t federal. I’m just saying be careful what you wish for. Thank you for your service sir.
The places that you mention have GENTRIFIED, moved out the demographic committing violent crimes. It is not some enlightened social policy or change in policing, but shoving the crime committing demographics out.
No doubt, that is part of it. Even criminals and gang members, are subject to real estate market forces, Madre, hermana and prima gotta pay the rent. The gang injunctions of the 2000’s are part of it too. But from a libertarian perspective those injunctions violate 1st amendment rights? I don’t care, friends I drink with do.
Much can be said for the validity of most of that which has been noted so far in this discussion. I harken back the the “War on Poverty” as the origin of the decline of values and family in the US. It’s the beginning of the Liberal concept of the state providing for everything in the life of someone who the government thought was poor. It stole the essence of self determination from an entire segment of the population. The government’s largesse came bundled with regulations that were chains binding future generations to intellectual and spiritual servitude. Fifty four years and fifteen trillion dollars later government continues on its course, driven by liberal/progressive ideas, and the problems created by them continue and deepen. With the able assistance of a sympathetic media the continued degradation of shared values, accepted behavior, and ethical conduct has plummeted to a depth that we may never ascend from without even greater turmoil. For those of us in the winter of our lives we worry about our children and cry for our Republic.
the problem is the Government, in their zealousness to stop child abuse they have systematically destroyed parental control! they have violated the Sanctity of Marriage: they have encourage the Idea of personnel revenge! they have perpetuated the Idea of single mom’s of all races, some more than others, they have usurped the will of the people in doing for themselves, there by destroying the confidence of people doing it for them selves with out Government’s help, Government have let in all brand of Aliens and not required them too assimilate into the culture, they tax the working people too death so they can squander it on people who have not earned the right too those benefits! neglected their citizen in favor of votes. you have provable corruption at the highest levels and they get away with it. they destroy the Bill of rights and the Constitution by sly manipulation of their wording of laws, then there are the Bureaucrats who can pass laws without Legislative action!
Politicians can’t fix a thing but they sure can F up wet dream, Its in the Bailiwick of the Democratic party who are at the center of the Destruction of the United States especially gun Control which became FDR”s thing because Chicago was a gangster’s paradise shooting all the Tommy guns, and Democrats wanted it stopped, but no balls to do it themselves. so now we have this mess of Gun control which was Backed by the NRA in 1968, so our children emulate that what they can trust video games! and Lawless Politicians and Media who glorify them by dancing in the blood of their victums!
Republican’s control all three branches of the Fed and 2/3 of the state legislatures and governorships, did through Obama’s second term and Bush Jr’s first. Fox has the highest viewership of any net work by far, has for almost two decades. Are sure you know which one is the Donkey and which one is the Elephant? If democrats and liberal MSM have been kicking that much ass, while conservatives hold nearly all the power for the last generation; I don’t know what there secret is. Please, please don’t say public schools. Most states are red, they control there own public schools (mostly)
Except most of the large US cities and close suburbs are Democratic strongholds and that is where most of the school and violent crime problems are.
City’s and suburbs / ex-urbs are where most human beings live now a day’s. That’s demographics. Demographics are destiny. Are you advocating for gerrymandering?
Republicans controlled…
And during that time the US economy has been improving and violent crime has been falling
Cool, great, love it. Totally willing to give credit where credit is due.
It seems that boys (especially white males) don’t have a purpose anymore. We use to; defend the family in time of war and provide for the family by working when in time of peace. We would be wildly rewarded with admiration/respect which is all we asked for and needed for our work. Now we lost the “privileges” i.e. we are disrespected/insulted for being men, particularly white men, and taken away from our families.
We are now forced to work longer hours (to fund the increasingly broken families or face jail time), taxed more heavily and having our kids taken from us. The government has taken our fatherly roles and the next generation of boys are growing up without fathers to teach them how to be men all while being taught they are disposable predatory inherently racist/sexist monsters.
Boys need to be reminded of their purpose and respected/admired for it. Watch Stefan Molyneux’s video on the boyhood crisis, it’s a great video.
I’ve made the argument that “12 Rules for Life” should be required reading for all young men finishing high school, as it addresses a lot of the issues raised in the article in ways the young female teachers cannot relate to male pupils, particularly ones who have no father figure in their lives.
Boys need to be able to explore the physical world around them at a young age through physical play, especially physical outdoor play. It’s how they develop the spatial and mechanical skills they have evolved to master as they grow into their purpose- protectors and builders. The calm, colorful quiet of the classroom doesn’t permit grade school boys to develop those traits in a way that is healthy…. Couple that with the constant discussion of toxic masculinity, hyper-sexualization and the narcissism social media provides, and it’s a recipe for effeminate young men that have no skills in the workplace and no purpose in the home. And a man without a purpose is a dangerous, weak man.
Observe the way men are portrayed on television sitcoms–dull-witted morons with smart-assed kids and a domineering woman “feminist partner”. The man is often shown being browbeaten and disrespected, and sulks into his own space.
Stand up to the liberal feminist monster that has created it and cast them out. Out of any positions of power, out of academia out of politics. One of the reasons this all exists is because of the MASSIVE insecurity complex that feminist women carry to the point that they tried to redesign society to a place where they don’t have to feel the way they do about themselves as women by destroying anything male and propping up these cardboard unearned images in media of female empowerment just so they can feel good about themselves. Its like buying instagram followers just so you can feel popular. They’re not real or earned.Every other day there is some sort of women’s day to remind everyone about it. And its the same with liberal men who cant compete. They think they’ve defeated a giant bully in masculinity when it was masculinity that helped them survive and get to a place where they could actually function in society and they all turned and stabbed us in the back for it.
“There is a reason why girls outperform boys in school. Girls are not smarter, on average, but they have an easier time because the classroom is set up to
reward the calm and organized demeanor more natural to them. Boys are
more rambunctious; they have more physical energy; they are less able to
sit still and less able to focus attentively on one dull task for a
prolonged period of time. The typical classroom environment is torture
for a boy. It penalizes him for being himself. It penalizes him for being a boy.”
This is a big part of the problem, no doubt. Back in the late 60s the focus of education began to shift more toward helping girls succeed. There was at that time a significant gap between achievement results of boys and girls starting in middle school. The problem now is that we have shifted the educational paradigm so much in favor of girls that boys are now being left behind academically and they are not receiving the social skills important to become responsible men.
Some of this is because of the lack of a father in the home but a good part of it is also due to the education system trying to socialize boys as if they were girls.
Incidentally, you are also spot-on regarding the portrayal of men in the entertainment media, particularly on television. It’s disgusting.
As Chris Rock would say “Teenage, make up tutorial, Insta-gram princesses and there university board of director mothers are comin for ya’ll, ruuuuuuunn, ruuuunuuunn!!!” ” I ain’t got three guns in my house cause a Taylor Swift!” But you know what? It seems like maybe some of you guys do. Gentlemen, be honest with yourselves, your terrified of Taylor Swift aren’t you? Those impossibly long, slender, toned milky white legs that seem to go on forever, yet, deep down, you find her strangely alluring, but she might hurt you, you must keep your armor up!
Households with firearms and no prior criminals are about 30% safer than homes with no guns.
do you think people with a fire extinguisher in their home or in their place of work are “terrified” and the irrational ones?
And homes with no fathers, which modern feminists say makes no difference are almost twice as likely to produce violent criminals. You want to be flat earth anti-science on that, go ahead. It just makes you look foolish
Chris, my god, man!? You seem like an intelligent, educated man. I’m guessing your a current or former mental health, social services or law enforcement professional? Yes? You said your a gamer, so i’m guessing your under 40. It doesn’t really matter, you’ve engaged me respectably, so of course I’ll extend the same You can’t see that most of these guys are bitter, old, misogynists? I can, it’s pretty clear. That’s not the way forward for second amendment rights advocacy. It’s just not.
Well what is the most common denominator in mass shootings? Psychiatric drugs. Except in places like Chiraq(THOSE boys are just violent scum). Funny how the drug connection is rarely mentioned…
I also notice in the recent media discussions of the rising suicide rate, that the uncertain effects of long-term psychiatric drug use are never mentioned. Never mind that suicidal ideation is a known side effect for many such drugs. Never mind how their use has exploded.
One of John Noveske’s last public postings before his death was a link between psychotropic drugs and all the school shooters.
Quite the eye opener.
It’s corellation, not causation. Who takes anti-depressants? People who siffer from depression. They tend to commit suicide. Who takes anti-psychotics? People who suffer from psychosis. They tend to commit violent acts. Drugs don’t work the same on everyone. They are more or less effective. When they aren’t effective they don’t prevent anti-social or suicidal behavior.
In the old days, a quick way to become famous was to kill a celebrity. These days celebrities are harder to kill, so mass shootings are a substitute – killing one unknown person won’t get the public attention. I say unequal distribution of protection is the main cause.
Maybe that’s why celebrities want to disarm everyone – they instinctively feel they are the real aim and mass shootings are a substitute.
Gun control has always been about assassinations and insurrections. See the attempt on Truman’s life prior to the NFA, the shooting of JFK before the GCA, and how the 1993 Brady Act got its name.
The ’34 NFA was enacted by FDR after his attempted assassination, which resulted in the death of Anton Cermak who was Chicago’s mayor. Truman was a 2A supporter.
If rich people can afford to live in gated communities, hire private security, send their kids to private schools and hire first class attorneys when those kids fuck up who are you to say they can’t? … right?
That is not the demographic committing most murder, not by a long shot.
We’ll that wasn’t mine nor David Piggs point.
This really isn’t true and it makes half of our argument contradictory. There used to be less mass shootings but there were still like 40% more annual homicides.
It depends on what era you’re looking at. Our current homicide rate is comparable to what it was in the 1960s, which was itself a historic low.
The post war period through the early 60s had a murder rate similar to the current nadir.
In every US jurisdiction that looks at it north of 90%, and up to 94% of murder is committed by prior criminals, AND north of 90% of murder victims re themselves criminals. Whereas in the 1960’s bout 65% of victims were criminals.
If you are not a criminal your risk of being murdered the the US has been plummeting for at least 60 years and was 250% higher a generation ago than today.
People haven’t changed…
We are only the electricity going out and 9 missed meals away from beating each other to death over a can of beans and trading women as currency.
People are only sophisticated and enlightened when we have full bellies and access to water.
Unlike now, when we beat each other to death over a woman and trade cans of beans as currency? 🙂
I thought it was trading currency for women’s cans, then going home and beating your beans to death…
I grew up and was taught at a high school in a farming community. Back then (late 60’s and early 70’s) students thought nothing of carrying a pocket knife with a small blade into class and having their shotguns locked in their cars trunks so they could get in some hunting time in after school. The teachers and principal knew this and thought nothing of it. Today a pocket knife at school, even if you didn’t intend any harm with it will get you sent to juvenile detention and likely get you expelled. Ah yes, progress under socialism.
Ever wonder why it’s only suburban schools in middle class neighborhoods are the scenes of mass shootings and not gang infested inner city schools? Could it be that a bad guy with a gun stops an even worse guy with gun?
Just sayin’
What ever happened it happened because Baby Boomers (people over 65) allowed it too. They are the origin of the problem, not the solution. The fault at least originates with them, not their children, not their grand children,… them. Boomers have been very poor stewards of the republic; it has become a crumbling empire on their watch, both abroad and now finally at home. “The tyranny we impose on others, we eventually impose on ourselves.” Eventually has finally come for America.
What ever happened to personal responsibility? My teachers were leftwing and yet a majority of my classmates didn’t go left. The Boomers have had a minimal presence at the pinnacles of power. I can think of only two Presidents and two Speakers. We are the bypassed generation.
Each generation has a responsibility to make it’s own way. If Millennials can’t think on their own then the onus is on them and not their predecessors.p
Trump makes three. As a demographic boomers are by far the largest and longest lived generation that will ever exist in the western world. To the extent that republican (r) democracy has ever truly existed it has been most directly influenced by the political and economic behavior and attitudes of the baby boomer generation. In a society that is a confluence of representative democracy and capitalist market forces boomers by sheer volume and longevity have been represented the most. X’ers, Millenials and Z’ers will amass less wealth and die younger on average. Z’ers (the parkland kids) will also likely face a catastrophic global kinetic and or cyber / economic war. ” You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” Meaning the social construct of “individual responsibility” is just that,… a social construct. While it is relevant and even necessary to interpersonal interaction, it has little if any influence on the forces that shape human history broadly.
We have no idea if the following generations will live shorter lives. Suicide and drug abuse are the reason that iife expectancy had dropped of late. Generation X is doing just fine. They are a small generation that came of age at just the right time. Millennials are the largest generation in American history and they have made their own choices. All generations have faced economic challenges and/or the threat of war. If the Millennials won’t step up that is their problem. The boomers came of age in the 1970s. That was the second worst decade for economic performance of 20th Century. All the things you said about the Millennials were said about the Boomers. We improvised, adapted and overcame the challenges.
I am guessing that you are a late Xer or a Millennial yourself. Suck it up and get on with your life.
“Après nous, le dĂ©luge” / (“After us, the flood”)
– Madame de Pompadour
” Hey whatever, fuck it maaaaaan!”
– Jeffrey Lebowski
” Suck it up, and get on with your life.”
– TDIINVA
” Thanks for the advice pal.”
– Detective John McClane
Society has become less violent, however individual violent acts have become more ferocious.
This is the crux of the issue.
David Hogg. “Remember [sic] a time when there wasn’t a school shooting every week? I don’t because I wasn’t alive.”
Kris Paronto. “I remember, it was before your generation started shooting up the schools David, even though we still had guns. Thank you for confirming..again…that it’s not the gun, it’s person, and in particular you & your peers millennial culture.”
Anyone over 40 or so should recall a time when school shootings were almost nonexistent. Older folks can recall when mail order guns were really available and school shootings were extremely rare.
People haven’t changed, satan’s POS (D) pod-‘people’ minions have invaded. They should be fenced in, and kept from spreading.
The murder rate is near historic lows. The premise of the argument is flawed.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/06/long-term-trend-in-homicide-rates.html
Indeed, under 1% of articles on gun violence and gun control advocacy ever mention that US gun murder rate has plunged. It is the core metric in the debate and virtually never mentioned, since surveys show once people know gun murder fell in a generation, they are very likely to go from supporting more gun control to neutral or opposing any more.
Know what has changed from a generation ago when gun murder rate was 250% higher? today we have much higher incarceration rates of felons and violent criminals . And since prior criminals commit over 90% of murder we know this is not just a ‘correlation” but that increased incarceration CAUSED the huge drop in gun murder
I’m actually starting to get kind of annoyed with my own side being too pedantic. There’s a common strawman that the 2A crowd goes to about a gun that kills someone all by itself which is BS. No anti-gunner thinks that.
The anti-gunner is afraid of people having a competitive advantage over them when it comes to violence – either the antigunner wants the masses to be easy prey for themselves or they want the masses to be easy prey to the same predators that they themselves are vulnerable to. Their survival strategy is simple numbers – they don’t have to be faster than the gunman when they are fleeing in terror, they just have to faster than you. The odds of their survival increase with the number of targets to choose from increases, so they are hoping with you added to the mix, the gunman will shoot you instead. They aren’t stupid, they’re evil and cowardly and will gladly let you take a bullet for them so that they can cry on TV while calling for usually already illegal guns to be banned even further.
When I was 13 years old, I finally talked my parents into letting me get my first firearm, a Remington Model 514 22 cal. bolt action single shot rifle. My father talked to the local manager of the Fed Mart and it was arranged. I rode my bicycle the 3 miles to the Fed Mart and after paying the cost, about $13.00, he gave my prized possession and I carefully rode home. That was the beginning of my love/life of firearms. Surprisingly, I didn’t shoot anyone. Later, I did take the rifle to my Jr. High School and did a presentation on firearms to my class. No SWAT team was called, no police came to hand cuff me. I don’t remember any school shootings in those days. Now, I wonder what has changed from then till now?
The liberal ideology has destroyed the moral fiber of too many people.
So now, as the Reverend Jeremiah Wright likes to say: “The chickens have come home to roost”.
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