Friday, February 16, 2018

Some Thoughts - No Solutions

Another school shooting, and even before the injured can be transported to the hospital, the news media and the internet are full of  opinions - knee jerk reactions from both ends of the political spectrum.
I am not sure what the solution is - not even sure that there is one - but I'm sure the answers I'm hearing from both sides are wrong, or at least incomplete.
I do know that the world kids grow up in today is totally changed from the time I grew up in.  I didn't have video games or social media.  Bullies in my day didn't spread snarky rumors or embarrassing photos on SnapChat; they knocked you down and stole your lunch money.
We had guns back then.  In fact, almost every pickup in the high school parking lot had a rifle in its gun rack.
We had fights, but they were almost always settled with fists.  Pulling a knife, much less a gun, would be seen as socially unacceptable, and the perpetrator would be ostracized.
Most notable, we had parents who loved us.  Parents who had our best interest at heart, but parents had made it crystal clear what constituted acceptable behavior, and who were not afraid to use corporal punishment to enforce the rules.
We had weird kids back then, too, kids who felt like they had been dealt a losing hand in life.  But instead of shooting up their schools, they either lived through their time of crisis, or, in at least one case I remember, shot themselves. 

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