Eugene poses this question in his last post, and asks whether the rate of such incidents has increased. The answers are "very rare," and "probably not." In her 2004 book Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings (pg. 51), Harvard Professor Katherine Newman notes that there was no more than one such case in the entire US for any year between the 1974-1975 and 1991-92 school years. There was a small spike in the 1990s (starting with 2 cases in 1993, and a high of 6 in 1997-98), but falling again to 1 case in 1999-2000 and 0 in 2001-2002. It is likely that there was a brief 1990s spike caused by copycats imitating a few highly publicized cases, such as Columbine. At the same time, the peak years still had such low absolute numbers of cases that it is quite possible that the increase was simply a result of random chance variation. I don't have comparable statistics on mass shootings on university campuses. But such cases are likely to be even more uncommon than those in schools, given that the total number of murders occurring on college campuses nationwide tends to be about 10 to 20 per year (as noted in my last post). The extreme rarity of such incidents should be kept in mind as we decide what, if any, policy changes should be made in response to the Virginia Tech tragedy. Some changes may well be warranted, but we should guard against costly overreactions such as the draconian "zero tolerance" policies implemented in many schools after the Columbine attacks in 1999. As a professor in the Virginia state university system (of which Virginia Tech is a part), I hope we can resist the temptation to enact similar measures.
All Related Posts (on one page) | Some Related Posts:
- Semi-Automatics Vs. Revolvers:
- A Strange Thing To Assert as Fact:
- A Well Regulated Militia:...
- The Copycat Effect
- How Common Are Mass Shootings at US Schools?
- Are U.S. Mass Shootings More Common Now Than Before?...
- Tragedies as Occasions for Discussing Ways To Prevent Repeat Tragedies:
- Tragedy at Virginia Tech:
- Shootings at Virginia Tech:
To go off-topic for a bit, here's a bit of good news on a story that VC has been covering on and off over the past few months. It seems the Metropolitan Airports Commission of Minneapolis-St. Paul has grown a backbone after all, and decided to crack down on those cabbies who have been refusing to take passengers carrying alcohol.
Guns are somewhat like automobiles- everyone should have one, but the one they have should have safety features like seatbelts, airbags, traction control, ABS, energy absorbing crushable parts and hopefully even collision avoidance systems in the case of automobiles.
For some reason, regulations for making guns safer for others have not been supported by supporters of gun owning rights. As a result unsafe guns are getting to be far more common than they need to be. As with automobiles, too many of the unsafe variety make everyone unsafe because most accidents involve more than just the owner.
Also, regulations to control the amount of ammunition, type of ammo or even track ownership of guns are stymied for no good reason. There is little opposition to having to get a license to drive or the need to register a car. Replace car by a gun, and suddenly there is a need for not requiring permits at gun shows, and other liberties with gun ownership that automobiles owners can only dream about. Incidentally, ownership of automobiles is no less supported by the Constitution than that of guns.
Notwithstanding, it is unclear if the mere proliferation of unsafe guns results in the rampages, which are disturbing even if supposedly 'rare.' It is clear that proliferation of safe guns is preferable.
Indeed, making guns safe enough to be a reliable tool rather than presenting an enhanced risk of self-inflicted or unintentional injuries will go a long way to bring acceptability to guns.
Merely blaming law-breakers for bringing gun-owners flak is disingeneous (guns do not kill-people kill etc.) and ineffective as a rhetorical or persuasive tool. The regulations have to be implementable and need to be supported by the gun lobby, which otherwise risks being ignored as events overtake and overwhelm its power.
here's a list
IHT
of US campus shootings, from the International Herald Tribune (got it via Tim Blair
"regulations to control the amount of ammunition": Do you have any idea how much ammo a serious shooter will take on a trip to the shooting range? Neither do the politicians proposing these laws. (I know guys that will fire 500-1,000 rounds in a day at the range - and in my experience, that's what's needed to really get proficient with a weapon.)
"type of ammo": You mean the mythical cop-killer rounds. Some armor-piercing pistol ammunition is banned, so don't claim these regulations have been "stymied for no good reason." On the other hand, any center-fire rifle round will penetrate most body armor, and the venerable 30-06, long used by American hunters, will penetrate any conceivable wearable armor. So when politicians start talking about restricting ammo, gunnies have pretty good reason to think they're going to lose rounds commonly used for legitimate purposes.
"or even track ownership of guns": Gunnies get paranoid about gun registration, but just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. Gun registration is a necessary precursor to gun confiscation, and gun confiscations have happened in many other countries and some states of the US. Furthermore, Federal law has long provided a compromise way to track ownership of most legally owned guns; gun dealers have to keep records of sales, and agents can go to the dealer and search their records when needed. It doesn't work so well for guns used by criminals, because (duh!) most criminals get their guns through illegal channels, and those crooks just don't keep good records for law enforcement to seize.
Then there are the really impractical and costly proposals that are either proposed by people with no idea of what they're asking for, or are stealth bans: "Ballistic fingerprinting" (requiring fired casings to be turned into the police before a gun is sold) adds to the cost of guns as well as requiring a lot of tax money to maintain the database, but the one state that does it has never solved a crime with the database. Modifying guns to stamp an ID # on fired bullets or casings is quite impractical, and is a gun ban in disguise. Putting serial numbers on ammunition and reporting who bought each box is a would price ammunition out of most people's reach - and also introduce a registry.
Quite simply, in my experience, gun laws are proposed by people with a hidden agenda to ban all guns and ammunition, pushed by reporters who are abysmally ignorant about guns, and voted on by politicians who only know what the media said about the bill. If laws affecting cars were routinely written and passed by legislators who thought they were powered by rabbits on treadmills under the hood, you'd oppose any such laws - but I've again and again seen legislators demonstrating that level of ignorance about guns.
What safety features should guns have to prevent them being used in murder?
The rest of your analogy to automobiles is one that gun owners would greatly support. I can drive a car in any state and any Canadian province on my Idaho license. I am about to spend a weekend in New York City promoting my new book. My concealed carry permits from Idaho, Washington State, Oregon, Maine, Connecticut, and Florida will not be recognized.
Gun control advocates seek to ban quite a number of guns for having too high a capacity. The analogy would be if they were trying to ban my Corvette--a car capable of breaking the speed limit of every state by 100 mph.
Gun control advocates ask why we can't have mandatory registration of all guns. Simple enough reason: gun control advocates have stated that registration is the first step towards confiscation of all privately owned handguns. (See New Yorker, July 26, 1976 interview with Pete Shields, second director of Handgun Control. The first director is mentioned in that article as a CIA employee. It is amazing how many liberals are prepared to believe dark things about the CIA--and yet back a group founded by someone from CIA.)
A number of states do have handgun registration. And how many violent crimes has it solved? Alan Krug's study done some years ago concluded a handful. Why? First, because criminals don't usually register their guns (in fact, they are specifically exempted from the requirement to register guns because of the Fifth Amendment--see Haynes v. U.S. (1968)), and when a criminal leaves a gun behind at the scene of a crime, it is usually because he's lying in a pool of blood.
RE: Born Yesterday
How Common vs. More Common
I've been around since 1950. Cogent since 1967.
I recall the Texas Tower mass murder.
Between then, 1966, and Columbine (4 miles away from my place of work), I don't recall many other such incidents.
Since then, there have been many more such events.
Were you born yesterday that you can't put this into perspective?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. Welcome to the proverbial 'Generation of Vipers'.
First of all I don't see where Rattan gets off claiming automobile ownership is just as supported in the constitution as guns. The reference to arms in the 2nd amendment clearly was understood to mean guns, even the collective right people admit this, while cars aren't mentioned anywhere.
As far as safety measures I can't speak for Rattan but some good ones would be that grip identification they keep speaking about, i.e., the gun can't go off unless it recognizes it's owner. In particular a system where gun owners had to have an RFID chip implanted in their hand (simple injection) and the gun would be (irreversibly?) attuned to them. No need to make this be a government project if you are worried about tracking or privacy but just something that prevents kids from accidentally shooting themselves and other tragedies. Restrictions on ammo seem totally useless unless they were so draconian to effectively be a ban on guns.
This sort of safety measure might do something to avert some shootings as it would be impossible for people to simply pick up someone Else's gun and start shooting. They would have to properly get licensed and go through the waiting period. However, the main point is not to stop shootings like this one but to reduce the harms in letting people own guns. Presumably the idea being that if guns had a low enough accident rate it would be more acceptable for people to own them, even on college campuses, thus allowing greater self-defense use.
I don't know about the self-defense benefits but my support for gun control would certainly greatly decrease if the number of people killed in accidents was reduced. It is really the accidental killings and the everyday one on one violence that we need to worry about not sensational but extremely unlikely events like the VT incident.
Bill Poser:
I couldn't agree more. It absolutely sickens me that politicians and voters are going to be driven to change laws and policies to avert results like this. The side effects of any change in law or policy will be far larger than the number of school rampages prevented. Even if the state of Virginia just decides to hire armed security guards the money they spend on that will have an opportunity cost of an order of magnitude more deaths as it could have been spent in simple preventive health programs or vaccinations.
What really annoys me about these events like this one of 9/11 is that people wield social demands for respect and sympathy like weapons against any suggestion that they aren't that big a deal on the national scale of things. In fact I'm still pretty offended by implicit disregard for all the other families who lost people around 9/11 that both the 9/11 victims, the media and the country have shown. It's no less bad if your family member died in a car wreck the same day.
RE: Sick and Tired, Are We?
"It absolutely sickens me that politicians and voters are going to be driven to change laws and policies to avert results like this." -- logicnazi
Wouldn't it depend on HOW the laws were changed?
Change can be good or bad, depending on how the change is worded and/or implemented.
From my perspective, this mass murder could have been stopped short, had the students and teachers been armed, as a proposed law in Virginia would have allowed, had it not been shot down...to the praise of the VT administration.
RE: Law Changes? So What?
It's against the law to chain doors locked. However, the reports coming out of VT indicate the doors were so closed, not allowing anyone escape.
I see the SAME DAMN THING in my local middle school. And it REALLY GETS ME PO'D!!!!
We can change the laws. Or call for them to be enforced, but when the local schools don't abide by them.......
As in yesterdays FIASCO, "Gun Free Zone". Yeah. Right.... Only to the law-abiding. In other words, THIS AREA IS A SHOOTING GALLERY!
Fishes in barrels.
To the 2006 legislators of the Great State of Virginia and the administration of Virginia Tech....
This blood's for YOU!
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[VT: A herd. Not a pack.]
RE: This Reminds Me
"As in yesterdays FIASCO, "Gun Free Zone". Yeah. Right.... Only to the law-abiding. In other words, THIS AREA IS A SHOOTING GALLERY!" -- myself
Does anyone here find it interesting that the venues and highest body-counts of these mass murders seem to occur in "Gun Free Zones"?
If I'm wrong about that, please disabuse me.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[It matters little what sheep think, if wolves are of a different opinion.]
It's bothersome to see non-shooters pondering on the value of "safe guns" while having little or no experience with them. There is no way to make a "safe gun", the product is inherently dangerous by it's nature, and their users need to treat them that way. Fortunately, gun accidents are very rare compared to murders, so it seems gun owners do a pretty good job of that overall.
There is no real technological way to make a "safe gun", at least with current technology. Oh, sure, you can make one, but to make one that works reliably enough is another issue. Guns are a product where simplicity and reliability are paramount in designing into the product. 99% reliable is considered pretty bad for a firearm. They have to work every time, over and over.
If you look at New Jersey's smart gun law, you'll notice that police officers are exempt from this. The police departments know the whole thing is a sham, and don't want officers forced into using an unreliable technology. It's OK for the peons though.
He was the lawful purchaser of the two handguns. Of course, if somehow or another, one of his victims had managed to get one of Cho's guns away from him, it would have been useless.
And oddly enough, victims often take guns away from their attackers, and use them against the attacker. At Civilian Gun Self-Defense Blog, we have a particular category for this. This link will take you to 62 such incidents that we have found in news reports over the last several years.
RE: Uuuhhhh....
"How can one explain such mass capitulation to evil?" -- EIDE_Interface
See....
TO: logicnazi
RE: Sick and Tired, Are We?....(above)
VT: A herd. Not a pack.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. Thank you, NEA, for turning our children into victims.
I think we need some numbers on what is more common: accidents involving guns or defensive measures made possible by guns that otherwise are unsafe and simple (but may have not been useful if made safe). The debate on safer guns actually resembles the one from a few years back opposing the requirement for airbags based on cost, complexity, even added risk to small people. Most of those fears were just that- fears- and we are better off having overcome them. Instead of just one or two airbags, now we have sideimpact and even airbags in other locations. We have moved on to other methods to further improve safety. There is nothing so special about guns that similar improvements should not be demanded and expected from this category of products.
I have small children and no mansion in which to set a room or closet aside for storing guns with sufficient security. Plus, the tykes get into everything. Given this reality, which is not all that unique, I have to avoid owning/renting/having guns. My kid is fascinated by guns-- like most other kids. All the more reason to keep them off limits.
Children are very precious specially to their parents. I feel anguish at what the parents of those kids at the Polytechnic must be going through. If only there was a gun safe enough to allow it to be carried into various settings like the Polytechnic, the presently fantasy based scenario of resistance and fighting back could have materialized without a steady stream of accidents as a price to pay for such momentary preparedness. Indeed, with safe and known guns, passengers on an aircraft could be the first and most effective line of defense.
But the way gun ownership is politicized presently, they present unacceptable risks owing to their simplicity and lack of reliability from a safety perspective. Most of the people, unlike some gun owners, are probably far more concerned with accidents and difficulties inherent in demands placed by relentless oversight. Hence the need for solutions that substantially reduce such risks.
By the way, the fear of gun confiscation in a country with the second amendment and the takings clause is likely sheer paranoia. There is no liberal lobby that would reject a safe gun merely for the sake of doing so. And, liberals serve in the defense forces too. They are not exactly allergic to guns.
The focus on safety reflects real concerns about safety in view of the little use one has for guns in routine life. Other than by hunters, law enforcement officials, and children, there are few occasions to use guns routinely and children are mostly limited to toy guns. In this regard, it is useful to consider an unsafe product- swimming pools- that does have pleasurable uses for enough people that even trump the safety factor. So, New Jersy has a lot of swimming pools full of squealing children, who are also most at risk of drowning if not supervised carefully. This scenario is unlikely with guns.
Thus, I think the pragmatic way is to support and demand the development of safe yet simple to use guns. It seems to work best for increasing the use of most devices. Performance based regulations that include tracking accidents may be one way to approach this problem.
OK, I'll take you at your word. Now, could you please tell me what has been happening to the rate of accidental shootings over, say, the last 20 years? Also, as an means to guard against goalpost-shifting, how about if you first give us some idea of just what accidental-shooting rate it would take to "greatly decrease" your support for gun control.
I agree that reasonable regulation of firearms ownership and acquisition is constitutional. There are a variety of forms of regulation common in 1789. My new book Armed America gives a number of examples. However: "reasonable regulation" does not mean prohibition, nor does it mean regulations so onerous as to make gun ownership almost impossible, as most gun control advocates seek.
Gun accidents are actually pretty scarce, and in the context of your concern about your children, gun accidents are really, really scarce. Firearms accidental deaths in the U.S. for all ages, years 2001 through 2005:
802, 762, 730, 750, 730
Typically about half of firearms accidental deaths are hunting accidents. The oft reported "ten children a day are killed by guns" claim includes "children" who are as old as 19, and largely murders, then suicides. Gun accidents are relative to other causes of death for pre-teen children, pretty tiny:
"Children Killed by Guns
"How many children are killed by guns is a complicated question. The answer depends on a number of factors, including age range, and whether homicide, suicide, and/or unintentional-injuries are included in the figure. If the age range is 0-19 years, and homicide, suicide, and unintentional injuries are included, then the total firearms-related deaths for 1999 is 3,385 . This is equivalent to about 9 deaths per day, a figure commonly used by journalists. The 3,385 firearms-related deaths for age group 0-19 breaks down to 214 unintentional, 1,078 suicides, 1,990 homicides, 83 for which the intent could not be determined, and 20 due to legal intervention. Viewed by age group, 73 of the total firearms-related deaths were of children under 5 years old, 416 were children 5-14 years old, and 2,896 were 15-19 years old. See page 127 of the 2002 edition of Injury Facts ®."
It is actually not difficult to safely store firearms so that children (and burglars) can't get into them. When I lived in an apartment, I used a hard-sided gun case to store rifles, and used a lock and chain to secure it to a plumbing fixture. When I bought a house, I used first a steel gun cabinet (won't stop a determined burglar, but it will keep small children and most teenagers out). Now I have a real gun safe.
You have been successfully propagandized into believing that guns are unsafe and unreliable. Nope. Spend some time reading through the existing case law on firearms product liability. There are genuine examples of unsafe firearms designs--but darn few. The vast majority of gun accidents aren't defective guns, but defective idiots holding the guns. Being drunk tends to cause all sorts of gun accidents--just like it tends to cause all sorts of automobile accidents.
Little use? I run a blog that does nothing but record instances of defensive uses of guns by civilians that received media coverage. Go read it. Just this month's news stories will keep you busy.
Blaming the NEA? Unbelievable.
Apparently you're having trouble grasping the concept that "safe gun" is an oxymoron of the highest order.
Also, what you do about firearms and your children is up to you; I'd be the last person to try to convince you to do something you're not comfortable with. What I do find objectionable, however, is the "I have no other choice" pose you adopt about it. Really, there are safe ways to combine kids and guns, as the many millions of Americans who have done so can attest.
I'm sure there are scientific polls that would give reasonably close figures concerning liberal versus conservative propensities in the armed forces. I don't have time to look for them, though. My own experience, however, is that service members are overwhelmingly more likely to be generally conservative in outlook. The self-described liberals that I know cringe at the mention, let alone the sight, of firearms.
RE: Hardly 'Unbelievable'
"Blaming the NEA? Unbelievable." -- JoesphSlater
The vaunted American public education system has been trying to turn out 'sheeple' for quite some time. No 'tag'. No 'winners'. No playground equipment. No 'critical thinking'. No self-defense. And, for certain, no 'guns'.
And, if you hadn't noticed, the NEA pretty much runs the vaunted American public education system. Not to mention a goodly number of politicians vis-a-vis small-donor clubs with mandatory or hidden contributions from all their membership. [Note: Saw this first hand vis-a-vis a political campaign last General Election cycle.]
Maybe you missed the business about how some brave VA legislator TRIED to get a bill passed through in 2006 that would have allowed these 32 dead students to defend themselves. Shot down in committee. And acadamia acclaimed the decision.
Sorry you're so 'uninformed'.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful. -- C. S. Lewis]
Of course, even one or two a year is too common.
<a rel="nofollow" href="http://abw.mee.nu/28">This post</a> mentions a NYT study in 2000 on rampage killings. Attacks at schools by their criteria were only a fraction of the incidents.
Take two (or mods, feel free to delete, merge, edit):
Here's a rather thorough list of attacks at schools.
Of course, even one or two a year is too common.
This post mentions a NYT study in 2000 on rampage killings. Attacks at schools by their criteria were only a fraction of the incidents.
RE: Okay...
"The focus on safety reflects real concerns about safety in view of the little use one has for guns in routine life." — Rattan
....please explain the necessity of schools to ban elementry chasing and running games, as part of their 'concerns about safety'.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Life is full of pitfalls and pratfalls. Better learn how to bounce back on your feet EARLY in life, in order to recover quickly from the more dangerous incidents. — cbpelto]
RE: Statistics, Anyone?
"Attacks at schools by their criteria were only a fraction of the incidents." -- abw
Last time I looked, any portion of a set is a 'fraction' thereof.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Figures don't lie, but liars figure.]
I meant the entire mid-90s spike, including several incidents in 98-99 as well as those in 97-98. Nor did I mean to suggest that all those who engaged in copycat attacks did so to imitate Columbine. Some may have imitated Columbine, but others may have imitated earlier cases.
RE: Why....
"I meant the entire mid-90s spike, including several incidents in 98-99 as well as those in 97-98" -- Ilya Somin
....am I getting this sudden 'chill', vis-a-vis the alleged manipulation of data by Global Warming Doomsayers; shifting the goal-posts (sources) of their data to make things worse than they actually are?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The sky isn't 'falling', but the bullets are 'flying'. -- cbpelto]
...if not 1960, how about 1900?
I think people see this and jump to the conclusion that if the students were allowed to carry guns to class that this could have been avoided. While this may be true, it leads people to avoid the issue of what would happen during the rest of the time when these incidents don't occur. As was posted earlier, these incidents are few and far between, and never have they been this bad. However, college students carrying guns around campus year round creates the further risk of people making bad decisions and accidentally or intentionally shooting someone. I would guess that these incidents (not mass murder but merely single shootings) would occur with far greater frequency if guns were not banned on the Virginia Tech campus (or other campuses).
It seems to me that arming students may prevent a one-in-a-million situation from escalating further while creating greater opportunity for single shootings.
I agree with Ilya that these situations do not warrant jumping to broad conclusions about policy.
RE: Doubt It....
"The idea that if Virginia Tech was not a "gun free zone" this tragedy would have been prevented or at least stopped short is debatable, but admittedly possible. However, I doubt it if the shooter considered this in deciding to carry out his heinous acts and thus it is just as likely to occur on a campus which allows students to carry guns." -- ME
...all you like.
The fact remains that these mass murders SEEM to be perpetrated more in allegedly 'Gun Free' areas; schools, work-places, etc.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[An armed society is a polite society.]
Your argument seems to be more correlation and less causation.
Also, I didn't rule out that guns in the guns free zone may help prevent or cut short these mass murders. I was merely stating that changing the schools to "gun zones" will likely result in an increase in individual incidents.
RE: Still Missing the Point
"Schools and work-places are not the locations of these mass murders simply because they are gun-free zones." -- ME
Yeah. That's why DC, with its remarkably stringent gun laws is amongst the places with the highest amount of gun-related crime.
It's because the gangbangers are SOOOOOO afraid of the unarmed, law-abiding citizens.
RE: Evidence
"Your argument seems to be more correlation and less causation." -- ME
Correlation shows us where we should be looking for additional evidence.
History is rife with evidence that criminals LOVE unarmed citizens. The criminals, once they get into power, even enact laws to disarm the populace. Witness Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
On the other hand, I don't recall hearing about mass murder in the streets of America where every person you meet might be packing heat.
But go ahead and cling to your claim. It reminds me of the flat-earthers of the 15th Century.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Criminals love unarmed citizens.]
If someone were to whip out a pistol there and start plugging away at people in the street, they'd probably be answered by a hail of return fire before they could nail four victims.
Bombs are much more effective becaues they do not allow for return fire.
This indicates that making guns safer is a task that has barely started. The only use of guns in civil society is in hunting or fighting off assaults. If automobiles were as safe as guns then for every four or five instances of arriving at your destination successfully (comparable to the mounting of defensive measures), there would be about three to four trips resulting in fatalities. When accidental deaths start to fall from almost a thousand to about one or two preferably not in the same year, a reasonable case could be made that guns are actually safe.
A lot of folks took the view that guns are safe, it is the idiots firing them that are the problem. I agree. But as we know, we have to plan for and calibrate gun safety goals for the idiots we have and not the idiots we would like to have. Making guns safer is only a technical challenge not an impossible task. It is best to cooperate so that ninnies like me can keep guns in the house with as much ease as Mr. Cramer.
Your math is off by more than a single order of magnitude. I hesitate to say this, as Logicnazi will probably think me stating this information lets him off the hook, but we've been experiencing a long, steady decline in accidental shootings. There are something on the order of a hundred successful defensive uses of firearms for every accidental shooting--perhaps even more.
RE: Thanks for the Seque
"This indicates that making guns safer is a task that has barely started." -- Rattan
You bring up, albeit in a bass-ackward manner, the root cause of the problem.
It is not, repeat NOT, a matter of making 'guns safer'. Rather it is a matter of making people 'safer'.
Consider the so-called efforts to make airline travel safer by not letting sharp instruments, and now even cell phones, on a US commercial airliner.
What a joke.
You can make a lethal weapon out of two high-end, steel-barreled pens and some dental floss; a garotte.
Guns don't kill people. People kill people, using guns as tools. Speaking of tools, I believe the idiots who assailed that guy in the NYC subway decades ago were armed with screw-drivers.
The point is that in this society, we have raised up a generation without the morals that protected us for so long. Now that we have successfully removed those internal mental blocks to obnoxious behavior, we've raised up a 'generation of vipers', who seem to be biting us on a regular basis now.
We had amoral people enough in the first place. They were estimated to be 1 in 5 of the population.
Now that we have removed the internal governance aspects, 'Do your own thing', we get a lot more demonstrations on their part of what their own thing involves.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. And AGAIN, I thank the NEA for doing such a FINE job of bringing all this about.
RE: Just to Drive the Point Home
"The fact remains that these mass murders SEEM to be perpetrated more in allegedly 'Gun Free' areas; schools, work-places, etc." -- Chuck Pelto, to ME
Day-by-Day, nailed it HARD with today's installment.
Zed proposes that we turn Iraq into a 'Bomb Free Zone'. See....
Let's see if it works in Iraq as well as it works at Columbine HS [four miles from where I worked], Bailey HS, some Amish school and Virginia Tech.
Care to place a small wager on the result?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Among other evils which being unarmed brings you, it causes you to be despised. -- Niccolo Machiavelli]
Go to....
http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2007/04/18/#a004093