Good discussion guys!

So clarify something, a few somethings, for me.

DD, are you saying that if only we could have a bunch of weapons in our schools we’d be able to stop all these school shootings? If we had conservative teachers that it’d solve the problem? I understand perfectly why you don’t agree with their views but it seems to me to be going a bit far to place the blame for mass shootings on a political ideology.

Arty, I agree that most of it starts and ends right in our living rooms. But me being the optimist I am, I think that the vast majority of American homes do teach their kids good basic values. Granted, there are a lot of kids growing up in horrible conditions with absentee parents and so forth. But think about who is committing these crimes. It isn’t the disadvantaged. we can’t spank or love or teach our way out of this.

And Willy, I think you’re hitting all around the issue. The commonality that I think we’re missing is why sociopathic behavior is so prevalent in our society. And its not just a value or morality I’m talking about, its a total lack of regard for how or what other human beings feel, whether they live or die, and allows them to inflict physical and emotional pain on others without a whit of conscience. That to me is the nut of the issue. Empathy is a human feeling that is basic and essential to the survival of our species. Our ability to buy into an idea, or story if you will, is what allows to build buildings and states and nations and sets us apart from every other species. There is no cooperation across so many of any other species on earth like there is in humans. That is somehow missing in people who commit mass murder.
BKB