Bang! Bang! My Baby Shot Me Down...

What the hell is up with all the school shootings? What the hell?!?

September 26, 2006: A 53 year old guy in Colorado molested six girls, two of them sexually, and then killed one. He left a suicide note before he killed himself.

September 29, 2006: A 15 year old kid in Wisconsin shot and killed his principal in retribution for all the bullying he received in school. He is being charged as an adult.

October 2, 2006: Two events to report:

1. A kid in Nevada, after being kicked off school campus, brought a gun to the school in the hopes of bloodshed, but was taken down before any shots were fired, while
2. A 32 year old truck driver leaves a suicide note for his wife, drives to a 1-room Amish schoolhouse, kicks out all the boys, then boards up the school and lines up all the girls against the wall to kill them execution style: three are killed, six are rushed to hospitals after the gunman takes his own life...

Is it just me or is this becoming way too common in America today? What the hell is going on? And why schools? I seriously think we should consider bringing back duels, where two people who have a beef with one another can just duke it out with two pistols, and that's the end. Not only would our poor children stop dying in what is supposed to be a learning institution, but we'd slowly be weeding the idiots out of the population. I mean, what snaps in someone's mind when they decide to shoot kids!! And then the Amish to top it off! They're fucking pacifists!!! They wouldn't grab a gun and shoot back to save their lives even if they could!! And these four are just the latest in school-shooting crime wave. Here are some others:

1. March 21, 2005: Sixteen-year-old Jeff Weise shot and killed five schoolmates, a teacher and an unarmed guard at a high school on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota before taking his own life. Weise had earlier killed his grandfather and his grandfather's companion.
2. November 22, 2004: Sixteen-year-old Desmond Keels is accused of fatally shooting one student and wounding three others outside Strawberry Mansion High in Philadelphia. The attack apparently was over a $50 debt in a rap contest. Keels is set to stand trial on murder charges later this month.
3. April 24, 2003: 14-year-old James Sheets shot and killed the principal in the crowded cafeteria of a junior high school in south-central Pennsylvania, before killing himself.
4. May 26, 2000: 13-year-old Nathaniel Brazill killed his English teacher on the last day of classes in Lake Worth, Fla., after the teacher refused to let him talk with two girls in his classroom. He was convicted of second-degree murder and is serving a 28-year sentence.
5. April 20, 1999: Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 23 before killing themselves at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.
6. May 21, 1998: Two teenagers were killed and more than 20 people hurt when a teenage boy opened fire at a high school in Springfield, Ore., after killing his parents. Kip Kinkel, 17, was sentenced to nearly 112 years in prison.
7. May 19, 1998: Three days before his graduation, an honor student opened fire at a high school in Fayetteville, Tenn., killing a classmate who was dating his ex-girlfriend. Jacob Davis, 18, was sentenced to life in prison.
8. March 24, 1998: Two boys, ages 11 and 13, fired on their Jonesboro, Ark., middle school from nearby woods, killing four girls and a teacher and wounding 10 others. Both boys were later convicted of murder and can be held until age 21.
9. December 1, 1997: Three students were killed and five wounded at a high school in West Paducah, Ky. Michael Carneal, then 14, later pleaded guilty but mentally ill to murder and is serving life in prison.
10. October 1, 1997: Sixteen-year-old Luke Woodham of Pearl, Miss., fatally shot two students and wounded seven others after stabbing his mother to death. He was sentenced the following year to three life sentences.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but you can see how disturbing this is, can't you? When did schools become unsafe? When did they become the place to settle scores instead of learning how to cope with life?

"We need more gun control laws!!" Don't give me that crap!! We have gun control laws! Laws don't do shit unless they're enforced. If people would start taking some personal responsibility for what comes in and out of their homes, perhaps guns would be less likely to find their way into your kids backpack? My parents always kept guns in the house, but you didn't see me searching for the keys and bringing it along for a good ol' shoot out! Why? Our parents took an interest! They knew where we were (or they tried to) all the time. And while this is not a cure-all for school shootings, I dare say most of these kids and adults who are playing "Cowboys and Indians" at the local schools most likely felt unloved, unpaid attention to, uncared for... a little bit of listening and caring goes a long, long way...

"We need to get back to God!!" Oh, really? Did Satan put that pistol in your kids hand and tell him to shoot 'em up? Why aren't there more atheists running around shooting people, then? I mean, if it's a lack of god that's causing school shootings, you would think atheists would be at the top of the list for death row, right? Did you know that the Federal Bureau of Prisons released a study that states that over 80% of prison inmates claim some form of Christianity? The same study also notes that "Note that atheists, being a moderate proportion of the USA population (about 8-16%) are disproportionately less in the prison populations (0.21%)." Hmm, quite curious, don't you think? Not that all Christians are bad--but being buddies with god certainly didn't seem to do them any good, did it?

But where does this leave us? More laws aren't the answer; we have laws already that do everything but revoke the right to bear arms, which I'll be the first to say is a right that should not be revoked!! (DISCLAIMER: I also believe that a "right to bear arms" should not translate into a "right to bear all arms"! But that's for another time...) But god certainly doesn't provide any practical sense to the issue, except maybe on each individual level, as the case may be; as I'll also be the first to say that religion is a necessary thing in most people's lives. (DISCLAIMER: a "right to religious expression" should not equal a "right to express religion onto everyone's lives"...) Not because they're bad, or less human, or stupid. But some people do need that spiritual presence in their lives to feel purposeful and important in some way.

What are your thoughts and ideas about not only what can be done, but what the main issue is that is the driving force behind this violence?