Natural reaction for a lot of people. I don't blame them. After all, they can only base their opinions on what they perceive to be the popular mood. That's the most intriguing thing about this whole situation. Watching/listening to people who normally have no/unformed opinions on this subject suddenly become experts on how to solve the "problem".
Kids killing kids is an old story. My wife and I discussed this recently, and we came to several conclusions:
1. It may be more frequent now, but there is no substantial evidence of this because records have only been kept for a relatively short period of time, and the record keeping has only been consistent for the last 10-15 years at the most.
2. Many murders, prior to 1930, went unsolved due to inadequate crime detection methods. How many involved kids? Who knows.
3. TV/Radio media has sensationalized these events to the point that their real impact is far less than you would think. We remember most of these things now because the media has over sensationalized them. Before about 1980, an event like this was surprising, but didn't warrant 15 minutes on the TV, wasn't covered by every TV news magazine for 1 hour the day it happened, didn't get headlines for more than a day in most major metropolitan areas.
4. Many people want so earnestly to believe that the world is going to hell in a handbasket that an event like this plays a major part in their decision making on how to prevent the world from "abandoning civilization".
I think I am in the minority when I say that I think the world is improving rapidly...that people for years have felt civilization was being abandoned only to find that its ties had been strengthened. During all improvements of civilization, ghastly events have occurred that have only proven the strength of the web of individual relationships. These ghastly events are horrible, to be sure, but they only succeed in making good relationships better, and destroying weaker ones. |
