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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (134118)	3/6/2001 3:33:44 AM
From: JohnD	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573599

Ted, RE<<Maybe in major cities like NYC, guns were readily available back 30 years ago but not like they are now. >> The reason I said they were always "available," was because many people had them. I remembr going with a scout troop to a shooting range when I was 14 or so, and this was a common thing. Responsibility was stressed, and understood. (At that time you had to be 16 to get a license to own a rifle) Take a look at the guns turned in when a community has a "gun buy-back" - now an annual event in many areas. These weapons are not the stuff made in the last 10 years or so. They are, in many cases, "left-overs from WW2 vets and guns legally purchased from the '50's through the '80's or so. Think about it-most of these guns have been laying around, in many cases because nobody cared, or made an effort to get rid of them~ Also, when somebody died the this stuff was frequently given to relatives, etc. I grew up in a city (pop. 100,000) in the industrial northeast, but the majority of weapons I've come across have been in small, rural towns where farming was once common. Re.<<As far as kids having less regard for life, again I have to disagree. I can remember girls in my hi-school contemplating and fantasizing about suicide. For many teens, death is not a reality.......they truly believe that they are invincible. Much like their bodies, their emotional and value systems are still developing.>> When I was growing up, movies frequently showed the "bad guy" usually getting killed-as in westerns. Even cartoons were pretty "violent" by today's standards. Maybe the family unit being a pretty different thing than it is today made a difference. Remember, about 30 yrs. ago, most families had 2 parents, and it was pretty rare for both parents to have to work. I can still remember a film clip on TV talking about the govt.-controlled life in Communist China, demonstrating the point by telling how the kids were not allowed to go home at noontime for lunch. Day-care and latch-key kids are not a very old concept. Perhaps this has something to do with our present situation. BTW, assistance was available then, but the family provider was required to work to earn it. Maybe this was common only in my area of New England, I really don't know. HTH JohnD-sorry to be so long-winded~ .

To: tejek who wrote (134118)	3/6/2001 9:03:02 AM
From: hmaly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573599

Ted Re... Further, it was not unusual to hear gunfire day and nite in many neighborhoods in the city. But its in the suburbs where there has been a dramatic increase in the ability to access guns. Whether thru family or friends, suburban kids have many more contacts to get guns.<<<<<<<<<< While all of these things are true, it is not true that guns are more available now as opposed to 30 yrs ago. Guns were always available. What has changed is that now a lot more people are packing guns. We used to settle our arguments with our fists, now they use guns. But anyone could have boughten a gun easier 30 yrs ago than you can purchase one now. So they react to situations spontaneously and recklessly without a lot of forethought. The kid in S.D., I am sure, thought he would be considered a hero among his "outsider" friends for killing their oppressors. It was probably the high light of his fantasy. Instead, he has ruined his life....something he won't understand fully for at least another 5 years. And in the meantime, two kids are dead who should be sleeping in their beds tonite. This is unfortunately also true. I really think we have to set up our high schools like our colleges where the kids can choose their high school, and classes and to some degree, what kind of school they wish to attend. I think most of the problems stem from kids who don't want to be there, who can't seem to find a better way change their situation. So they lash out. We really need to find a way to make high school an enjoyable period of one's life. The kids need to realize high school is there for their benefit, and we as a society, need to back off, and let them decide, they would be better off in school. We haven't seen this type of violence in college, my guess is that the trouble makers who go to college, decide to leave before they get to the boiling point. Another point I would like to make is that we should be teaching kids at a younger age,(kindergarden or beginning school) that the kind of picking on the nerd behavior does happen and we need to teach the kids not only how destructive it is, but also how the kids should deal with it. And if they can't deal with it, we need to allow them to change their environment. You are right that the teachers can't ignore the problem, but rather than trying to stop the problem; because I believe these problems are so common, it will be impossible to stop the problem;I believe we need to address the problem before violence rears its ugly head. It is easy to blame the guns, but to be effective, we need to address the underlying causes of the violence.