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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (22500)	5/29/1998 6:47:00 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Alex, certainly the national and international press are talking about the United States being a society obsessed with gun violence. The reason I cited once again the statistic about children here being the victims of gun violence at twelve times the rate of twenty-five industrialized nations combined is that this statistic in itself--cold hard figures--suggests a huge degree of aberrance, does it not? I will admit that I probably look at America from more of a distance that some people do, since my husband is Irish and I read the foreign press more than I guess most people do. I think the very idea that this seems normal to Americans is frightening, however. If it were truly normal, though, would journalists still be writing about it? Maybe the most extensive coverage is finished, and when the school year starts next fall, this will all just be another "normal" fact about our society. When you say that "each and every incident of gun use by children has a common theme: the kids were committing a felony" you presuppose in a way that we have become such savages that we now will abdicate the responsibility to be good role models for our children, bring them up in a society which at least attempts to be reasonably healthy and safe, or hold them to lesser standards of criminal responsibility because they children, and therefore assumed to be vulnerable, teachable, and salvageable. To me, that is a chilling thought. Does a four-year-old shooting a three-year-old with a gun he found under the bed even have the mental acuity or maturity to form criminal intent, incidentally? Does a disturbed teenager like Kip Kinkel, who really should have been in a residential program, a locked facility? Where do the presumed responsibilities of adults go in this equation? Upon what hinges does a healthy society hang, in your opinion? Congratulation on 22,500. I guess that is sort of half-way to 25,000, a number that seems incredible to me.

To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (22500)	5/29/1998 7:17:00 PM
From: Lady Lurksalot	Respond to of 108807

Alex, CGB, All, What has not been brought up in this discussion of children and gun violence is the gangs. Gang members are unbelievably young. Under the laws of some states, their ages would classify them as "infants." A 15-year-old gang member is considered by the gang to be virtually a senior citizen. In many communities across the US of A, gang members shoot at on another on an hourly basis. Gangs are family affairs, and active gang members can extend across three or more generations. Some gang families can be traced and followed back for several decades. Gang culture being what it is, leaving the gang and going straight is not an option for the gang member. The point of this post is that gangs, being what they are, mightily skew the statistics of violence committed by children with guns in the US of A. Holly