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Rampage Shootings: It's the Moral Decay of Society, not Guns
Townhall.com ^ | December 15, 2012 | Rachel Alexander

Posted on 12/15/2012 6:05:49 AM PST by Kaslin

It should come as no surprise that the rate of mass shootings at schools and in other public places is increasing. The surge has nothing to do with guns, which have been widely available in the U.S. for years. Gun control laws have been increasing. Instead, there is a direct correlation between the increase in violence and the gradual degradation of morals, ethics and parenting. We are cultivating mental illness in our society.

Parents are allowing television and video games to increasingly babysit their children, even though both have become full of gratuitous violence. A New York Times study of rampage killers found that six of them were into violent video games. Research shows that violent video games and television desensitize people and promote aggressive behavior, despite claims to the contrary. A research scientist at the University of Michigan found that television was responsible for 10% of youth violence. Parents today are neglecting their children, and when things don't go well, rushing to get divorced instead of trying to work things out first. Children suffer emotionally when their parents fight or split up. Parents are ignoring their children so much they don't even see the warning signs that something might be wrong. The New York Times study found that 63 of 100 rampage killers had made threats of violence before the event.

Parents are no longer taking their children to church, where they would learn stability and morals. Fewer than 20% of Americans now regularly attend church. Every year there are 3000 fewer churches across the U.S, even though the population is growing. God and morality have been taken out of the public schools and replaced with political correctness and non-judgmentalism. “Public virtues” are no longer taught in today's schools. People who do not attend church are more likely than churchgoers to have stress and to be less optimistic about the future. When parents split up and there is no father to take the children regularly to church, the children are much less likely to become regular churchgoers than if their mother regularly takes them.

The New York Times study found that at least half the killers in 100 rampage attacks showed signs of serious mental health problems. 48 killers were formally diagnosed with mental illness, often schizophrenia. The mentally ill used to be kept in hospitals, where they were not a danger to others. Beginning in the 1950s in California, the ACLU successfully filed lawsuits to take the mentally ill out of hospitals, known as “deinstitutionalization.” By the 1980s, most state-run mental health hospitals had closed.

Now, most of the mentally ill are out on the streets or in prison. The laws have been changed to state that the mentally ill cannot be hospitalized until they've already attacked someone. As a result, more mentally ill people are incarcerated than in hospitals, with the seriously mentally ill three times more likely to end up behind bars than hospitalized. More than half of all people in prison report that they have mental health problems, and more than 40 percent of the seriously mentally ill have been in jail or prison. A study at the University of South Florida found that the highest users of criminal justice and mental health services were 97 people who had been arrested 2,200 times. It is ludicrous that those 97 people are not contained for their safety and others in mental health hospitals.

The 22-year old Oregon shopping mall gunman who killed two people earlier this week is sadly typical of the rampage murderers the decay of society has spawned. He had this written on his Facebook page, "I'm the conductor of my choo choo train. I may be young but I have lived one crazy life so far." One of his friends said he raised himself; his mother died at childbirth, he never met his father, and he left his aunt's home at age 14.

The left will use the high level of emotion stirred up by this past week's two rampage killings to push through new gun control laws. Liberal New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg called upon President Obama to enact tougher gun control laws immediately after Friday's mass shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut. Yet demanding more gun control laws will not solve anything. Gun control advocates have already increased the number of laws around the country requiring background checks, waiting periods for purchases, and tracking of firearms. Many of the rampage killers obtained guns illegally. If they can't obtain guns, deranged individuals will find other ways to commit mass murders – by setting fires, making bombs or running people over with vehicles. One day after the shootings in Connecticut, a man in Beijing stabbed 22 primary school students with a knife.

The left should not be allowed to dominate the dialogue after these tragic events with a red herring argument for gun control, in order to sneakily distract Americans from blaming them for what they have wrought. Americans who believe in traditional values must speak up and denounce the degradation of society's morals as the root of the problem behind these rampages, or the tragedies will continue to escalate.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: banglist; connecticut; guncontrol; gunfreezone; guns; liberalism; mentalillness; moralabsolutes; newtown; schoolshooting; secondamendment
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To: Kaslin

I’m sure there is a long line of social services types who encountered this maladjusted freak and tip-toed on by. God forbid someone be judged.


21 posted on 12/15/2012 6:32:54 AM PST by BillyBonebrake
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To: Kaslin

>Now, most of the mentally ill are out on the streets or in prison. The laws have been changed to state that the mentally ill cannot be hospitalized until they’ve already attacked someone.<

Just walk down a crowded street in one of the larger cities and you will see people who obviously need help, but who refuse to seek that help. In many, many homes there are older children, many of them adults, whose parents would give anything to get them the help they so desperately need.

Our system is so broken. There are those who would take the rights of the vast majority to self-defense, in order to ignore the fact that depriving desperate families the power to get help for their deeply disturbed sons (and some daughters), dooms us to see this nightmare repeat again and again.


22 posted on 12/15/2012 6:33:19 AM PST by Darnright ("I don't trust liberals, I trust conservatives." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
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To: Kaslin

While rampage killing may be on the increase, the overall murder rate is still going down.


23 posted on 12/15/2012 6:34:08 AM PST by Sherman Logan (Brought to you by one of the pale penis people.)
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To: Jack Hammer

It must be remembered the event occurred in Connecticut. There is no moral decay there, there is rot. The status is long past the decay condition.

Rather than complain about gun control there should be cries for disassociation. America in the red zone should begin to consider such rotted morasses for purging from the union.


24 posted on 12/15/2012 6:34:52 AM PST by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 .....The fairest Deduction to be reduced is the Standard Deduction)
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To: Kaslin

Its Obamas fault. His illegal position as POTUS for four years is one thing, the outright theft of the election has unhinged many people, all it takes is a catalyst.

And you cannot reason with evil, this shooter may nave no grudge against any person, no he just felt bold, reckless and suicidal while harming others, exactly as if he became a Moslem.

I myself blame Obama and his Muslim infiltration upon our culture.


25 posted on 12/15/2012 6:37:38 AM PST by Eye of Unk (A Civil Cold War in America is here, its already been declared.)
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To: Jack Hammer

>>The worst part of it all is that the Republicans let them get away with it.>>

You’re right.


26 posted on 12/15/2012 6:39:17 AM PST by kitkat
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To: HiTech RedNeck

I would not call this a rampage shooting, it would be more accurately classed as an attack on authority.

I remember reading one book looking at what school shootings had in common. The three main things were age and gender of the gunmen (between 16-24), History of mental illness (generally schizophrenia and suicidal depression), focus on violence as proof of manhood.

These attacks have much in common with workplace violence in that they are attacks on the immediate symbol of authority in the shooters life.


27 posted on 12/15/2012 6:41:47 AM PST by Fraxinus (My opinion, worth what you paid.)
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To: Eye of Unk

I agree completely, plus I would like to add it’s also the fault for the ignorant voters that voted for him to elect and reelect him


28 posted on 12/15/2012 6:44:53 AM PST by Kaslin ( One Big Ass Mistake America (Make that Two))
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To: Kaslin

It is the mentally ill who are responsible for many of these recent shootings. It is time for common sense laws to keep these people off the streets and guns out of their hands.


29 posted on 12/15/2012 6:47:02 AM PST by Sarabaracuda (Comprehensive Immigration Reform NOW!)
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To: Fraxinus

Well, this may be excessive splitting of hairs. The reason, as perceived by the loon, for the rampage doesn’t mean the loon did not rampage.

At any explanation, normal societal conventions failed. So more drastic measures are needed.


30 posted on 12/15/2012 6:48:08 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck (How long before all this "fairness" kills everybody, even the poor it was supposed to help???)
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To: Kaslin

Our youth are being indoctrinated to accept Islam so its logical to believe that eventually they will behave like Moslems, and start killing targets of opportunity.


31 posted on 12/15/2012 6:48:43 AM PST by Eye of Unk (A Civil Cold War in America is here, its already been declared.)
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To: Kaslin
In the OLD days they took autistic, schizophrenic kids and others like them and locked them away for life when they were young.
We got civil and that afforded the opportunity for the crazy folks to kill more.
They could kill with a knife, car, bomb and so forth if you don't have guns.
We think some of the crazies are still nice so we do not want them locked away till after they kill one or many. So how do we handle that? The answer is not a nice one.
32 posted on 12/15/2012 6:51:01 AM PST by A CA Guy ( God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: VanDeKoik

Video games don’t only promote violence they teach kids how to really shoot. A friend of mine went on different shows talking about this, how they actually use some form of video games to train police and military.

And let’s not forget the music, vile violent lyrics that send an evil message. This generation is buried in violent media.


33 posted on 12/15/2012 6:56:31 AM PST by Kenny (<p)
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To: Kaslin; xzins; wmfights; wagglebee; trisham; little jeremiah
We are cultivating mental illness in our society.

We need to get away from the idea that people who slaughter little children are suffering from a "mental illness". They do not have a mental illness, they are suffering from a spiritual illness. Call it spiritual death actually. This is not a problem with the mind as much as it is a problem of the heart.

America, along with the rest of the planet, has seen fit to relegate God to the level of irrelevance and what we see is not the result of some faulty brain synapses, but basically we are witnessing EVIL in action.

It is people who lack the human spirit who can perform such monstrous acts and we are cultivating these monsters by steering the children of our nation and world away from the foundations of our forefathers faith.

God has been evicted from the schools and the rest of our public life. Is it any wonder that Satan has come in to fill in the gap.

Call me crazy but this POS was probably demon possessed. If he was not demon possessed, then he was completely without any human soul. He had somewhere surrendered his spirit to the powers of darkness and it was his choice to do it.

At the time of this rampage he was not a human being. Human beings have hearts. Monsters and demons lack any such characteristic.

As we drift further and further from God as a nation and as individuals, this is a harbinger of things to come.

I hate to sound like a lunatic, but right now the only word that I can think of to say is:

REPENT!

34 posted on 12/15/2012 6:57:52 AM PST by P-Marlowe (There can be no Victory without a fight and no battle without wounds.)
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To: txrefugee
Kick God out of schools, and Satan moves in.

Pretty much sums it up.

35 posted on 12/15/2012 6:57:59 AM PST by Kenny (<p)
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To: txrefugee
Kick God out of schools, and Satan moves in.

Pretty much sums it up.

36 posted on 12/15/2012 6:58:05 AM PST by Kenny (<p)
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To: Kaslin

These kind of shootings, ARE the fault of SOCIETY, and NOT the fault of the law-abiding American.

“No rod, no staff, all life becomes a laugh.”

I remember, as a boy, I “dood it”, and I “got it”. “Dood it” no more.

I remember when I was in Basic Training, and they could touch you (gasp), but I didn’t “dood it”, but some did ... THEY “got it”, but became better for it.


37 posted on 12/15/2012 7:06:59 AM PST by Terry L Smith
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To: Kenny

Yes! I was stunned at how popular gangsta rap from the 90s was still popular with kids even though most of the singers are now middle-age men living in mansions counting their cash, and acting on bad reality TV shows.

And their filth music is still infecting people that weren’t even born back then.


38 posted on 12/15/2012 7:09:08 AM PST by VanDeKoik
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To: txrefugee
When I was younger; G-d was welcome in the schools, abortion wasn't a topic of discussion, and students had GUNS in their school lockers. No school shootings to speak of.

Now we ban guns from schools; we boot G-d out of school, and abortion is discussed and practiced everywhere. Now people are shooting up schools, not to mention malls and other targets of opportunity.

Notice any differences?

39 posted on 12/15/2012 7:09:14 AM PST by who knows what evil? (G-d saved more animals than people on the ark...www.siameserescue.org.)
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To: Kaslin

Agree with the basic premise of the article (moral decay in society, breakdown of the family, rejection of God in the classroom....etc), however, it has been reported that Adam Lanza was “Autistic”, or had mental problems by his older brother.

Assuming that is true, could this boy have been at greater risk of committing this crime because of added factors involving a combination of prescriptive drugs? This is not, in any way intended to offend any parent who has bravely cared for an autistic child. However, in the past 30 years, the use of prescriptive drugs for treatment of everything from “ADD” to other “labels” applied to every childhood behavior has skyrocketed.

Certain anti-depressants have been correlated to increased risk of violence and suicide. Exposure to our modern culture in combination could further increase these risks.

Just curious as to whether Adam Lanza was medicated and if so, what he was prescribed.


40 posted on 12/15/2012 7:09:56 AM PST by motoman
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