23 Feb 2023 1:14 pm
I agree that it's culmination of factors. The ultra violent videos games alone aren't necessarily creating the monsters that decide to walk into a school and kill a bunch of kids, but... if you couple the games with the music, the technology, the lack of discipline and disregard for others in general, then life itself begins to look pretty insignificant.maineman » 23 Feb 2023, 1:51 pm » wrote: ↑ Oh no... I don't think it's the guns. I realize that guns don't kill people... sick, deranged people kill people.
I do think, however, that an explosion in availability of high capacity magazine semi automatic weapons has made it possible for more sick and deranged people to efficiently multiply the body count.
American kids have always had a fascination with guns.... everybody I knew played cowboys and indians or cops and robbers.... everybody had cap guns.
But I'll be honest. My dad was a big time lawyer and his friends were all lawyers and doctors and businessmen. And that's the kind of neighborhood I grew up in and I really don't know a single kid whose dad had even so much as a hunting rifle, let alone a sidearm. One big reason nobody ever brought a gun to school was because nobody had any guns to speak of.
I guess my best take is that it is sort of like radioactivity.... if you have one chunk of plutonium of a certain density it gives off a relatively constant amount of radiation. If you bring another chunk too close, you start to approach critical mass and the rate of radioactivity starts to rapidly escalate. I think that maybe, playing cops and robbers by itself is not all that "radioactive"... and then playing video games by itself might not be all that "radioactive" ... and add more violence on television.. and then add more guns... and maybe all of those things, added together has created a near critical mass of violence and the glorification and acceptance of it that it has just exploded?
Food for thought.
Throw in a cocktail of psychotropic drugs on top of the rest and little Timmy can get pretty unstable.
Smartphones are a contributing factor as well. Only in the last few decades have 10 years had the world at their fingertips as they have in the last couple of decades. These kids today are seeing things at 10-12 years old that I'd never even contemplated until I was an adult.
Smartphones should be illegal for children under the age of 18. Dumb phones are fine, but no kid should ever have unfettered access to anything their heart desires through a damn smartphone.
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