Aww, Dad ...

... I really REALLY don't want to take out the trash today.

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/new.../ff/story/0001/20030621/235649097.htm&sc=1110

"The gun was not Worley's service revolver, but he had trained his son to use it and it was not locked away, Morse said. "

"The media" at work. I don't know of any PDs that still issue revolvers. What do you bet his "service revolver" is an autoloader?

That kid has some serious problems but at 11yo really has no clue about what he did IMO. I've taken neighborhood kid to the range for years when mine were growing up. At 11 none of them had a clue about what a gun and bullet really did till after they actually shot something like a gallon water jug or melon. At 11 I don't think that they are really capable of understanding death unless they have had relatives die. By the time I was 12 I had lost 8 relatives, great aunts and great grandmothers that lived with us, none violently. My grandfather had been shot in the leg when robbers attempted to rob his armoured car on the brooklyn bridge so I got to see results, not pretty. Maybe some of the other cities should be like LA and require juvi offenders to take a tour of the coroners storage area.

True, but this was the son of a cop, fer cryin' out loud. His father taught him to shoot the thing, so he must have given him some idea what it does.

Y'all are gonna label me a bleeding heart liberal for this, but I honestly believe some -- maybe much, and possibly all -- of the blame lies with video games. They do two things, both of which are not productive to good citizenship: First, they let kids "kill" people -- lots and lots of people -- without ever experiencing the reality that killing people is a nasty, messy business, and that when you kill real people with real guns, they can't be reloaded for another game.

Second, they get kids into the mindset that shooting/killing someone is an acceptable approach to conflict resolution.

Okay -- donning Kevlar and Nomex, flame away

Actually Eagle I agree. Today’s society (movies, games, videos, etc) dehumanize shooting and killing. What are kids to think when in a game you hit the start button and the same bad guys are there again ready to do battle?

Bones
:skull1:

How would you get over your kid shooting you...I am pretty sure I would end my faulty offsprings life. Some things you can never forget or forgive. Not that I would be angry forever right?

My wifes best friends kids dont even know what a real gun looks like. So they came screaming out of my daughters bed room when the found her pop gun toy. My daughter is almost 4, knows what a real gun looks like, knows that they kill (our cats bring us examples of what "dead" is), and that she should not touch one and should leave immediately if any one shows her one. She knows that soldiers or police are the only people that can point guns at other people, (she target shoots with her pop gun, makes it pop and then knocks over what ever she had as a target). Education is always the answer if you ask me. Takes time. Would like to see more education in public schools about what makes a society, why there are laws, etc. etc. consequences of your actions...oh yeah...and there should be some real consequences. Pain, humiliation (different than just embarrassing), more education.

Eagle,
I Agree with what you said,most kids have no idea the concequences(sp) of killing something.
My son wanted to go hunting squirrels with me and he finally had a shot and killed one.He was suprised at the blood and the weight of carrying it back home.The process of cleaning it to eat also took some of the fun out of killing it.
We ,he did cook and eat it and he has learned a lesson.
Wayne

Patricide isn't new, certainly. Anyone can come up with examples hundreds, even thousands of years old.

I must disagree, I think, that our "modern" media environment has desensitized kids to violence. I've seen no definitive link, though I have seen some studies that I question because they were funded by groups on both sides of the issue, and came up with predictably opposing results.

That's not to say that our current culture hasn't had some influence. I just don't think that the TV news or movies or video games are a cause, but are rather more a symptom, of a changing attitude toward violence, especially with regard to firearms. It is a muddy issue, to be sure. Would Columbine have happened 20 yrs ago? Some say yes, others no. I think it did happen occasionally, and the difference today is the sensationalistic reporting of the events.

That is not to say that the media is to blame for that ... we, as citizens (and consumers), dictate what the media reports. We shouldn't anthropomorphize the information media, it is made up of people, it is not an entity unto itself.

We rebelled once before in this country against a similar issue, denouncing "yellow journalism". It is time for another of those social changes, in my opinion.

my ramblin's ... your mileage may vary.

btw .... I'm an NRA Life Member, too, but don't make any assumptions based on that. I stepped off the party platform a long time ago.