[American Soldier]

Not to sound like a liberal, but I do blame society for these incidents.

Most young boys are forced to live sheltered, soft lives incompatible with their hormonal warrior urges. 150 years ago boys this age would've been required to know how to use a firearm (as opposed to hiding the darn things from them) and would often have to stay outside working for long periods of time. Many would be required to hunt and chop large amounts of wood (today we tell them "Don't play with knives!")...

This is the price we pay for trying to raise boys in a sheltered manner. They will find ways to expend their aggressive energy. If people want to prevent this sort of thing, they need to push their kids towards programs like the Marine Corps Cadets or maybe even Civil Air Patrol (Boy Scouts and JROTC have been watered down too much).

[bassmaner]

Most young boys are forced to live sheltered, soft lives incompatible with their hormonal warrior urges. 150 years ago boys this age would've been required to know how to use a firearm (as opposed to hiding the darn things from them) and would often have to stay outside working for long periods of time. Many would be required to hunt and chop large amounts of wood (today we tell them "Don't play with knives!")...

You should be ashamed of yourself -- how terribly un-PC you are /sarcasm

But seriously, you're right on the money as far as today's feminized society denying "rites of passage" to young males. A nanny state is as a nanny state does -- and we'll pay the price if we continue to "protect children" to such a degree that we'll not want to let them leave the house until they turn 21.

[Bigg Red]

You make some excellent points about the way boys are raised today. What about sports?

[ArrogantBustard]

When I was this lad's age, I learnt the trick of dipping my hand in methanol and setting it alight. I've done it many times. A few simple safety precautions (a wet towel, for example) make it a fairly harmless parlour stunt. Hint: Don't use petrol. If I were a teenager, today, and got caught doing some of the stuff I actually did (and got away with) I shudder to think what I would be "diagnosed" with.

[Semaphore Heathcliffe]

This is the price we pay for trying to raise boys in a sheltered manner.

BTTT. The more stable, safe, and predictable our society becomes, the more alien it is for the nature of boys. Feminization thrives in modern society. Being a boy is now a "condition," to be treated with any manner of medications and re-education.

[ladylib]

You're right. I never see boys out on the street riding bikes, climbing trees, building forts, playing ball. They'd probably be arrested. Where are they? In the house on the computer? Are their parents afraid they'll be abducted by kidnappers or that they'll fall down and skin their knees?

One town in my county is now going to ban motorized scooters, even on private property.

When a dumbass movie like "Jackass" comes along, they go nuts. Kids in one town near me, on their school lunch hour, put one kid on the hood of the car and drove around. The kid fell off and hit his head. He's now in a coma.

It's really a bad time to be a kid now.

[Conservative til I die]

Sorry, I don't buy this "political agenda-push as social commentary." I don't follow how boys not shooting guns or going to boot camp leads to them setting themselves on fire. And if there was this big correlation, why do we read about maybe 4 or 5 idiots, tops, that have done something as stupid as lighting themselves on fire?