Guns and Gun Control

[Miami1839]

Wow. Look at all this. LOL

Mikki, I agree with you on some things but not necessarily on others. I worked as a psychiatric counselor with at risk youth for 2 years and I agree with you on the stand point that the majority of the problem is the angry kids. where are the parents? Which is another thing I'd like to bring up. From my experience many of these low income one parent families are the ones that have the highest risk of producing these angry kids. Of course any kid has the potential of becoming a perpretrator if he doesnt have a proper amount of support from various levels. So, yes, I agree Education and Prevention is something our country needs to make a top priority. Another thing. Look at the military families. If I ever got in trouble as a kid you could be rest assured that my Dad would hear about it from his CO. What I think is their is a lack of parenting and accountability on the part of the parents. There should be more intervention on the part of the local governments and the schools to see that parents do their job and if they dont then someone needs to step in before its too late.

As for public executions. why did we get rid of public hangings anyway? I could see how you would think it would be violent but look at the message its sending to everyone. I think theres lots of violence on t.v., rap(songs that recruit gang members), violent movies, etc. It might be quite a shock, but I think it would be something worth a try. You could always send your child to their room or give them something to do. Maybe that doesnt sound realistic but what I'm trying to say is we really need to take a stand and make a change. One that sticks and doesnt fall after 4 years of a presidential admnistration.

One idea I have which would probably only apply to those in high school but why not target those high risk kids in families and direct them in some kind of career mentoring/coop program. Just as you suggest Jeff. I think that would be pretty effective. I know from experience that is a useful tool. I'm not sure if it would ever happen but what about 1 year of required service in either the Conservation Corp. or in the U.S. Military upon H.S. graduation.

Jeff, Thanks for the kind words, yeah, I worked at a maximum juvenile correctional facility here in Virginia for a few months. I never had a firearm, because of state law and for obvious reasons relating to Virginia Juvenile Justice Law. The juveniles in our system that are incarcerated for felonies are kept until they are 20 and a half. Most from my experience were gang affiliated and had that street sense so that when they go into the facility they are at home. It really blows you away. Then they go through the rehabilitation program and get all the avenues of support. Then when their done the state releases them. Thats if they havent tacked more time on while inside. When they leave they have nothing. They go right back to where they came from and a lot of them go back to their high risk families if they have them. The ones in gangs, which are most of them end up being major targets when they leave the system. So as far as those kids that have served time I'm not really sure what the solution is. Most of those kids were more focused on modeling the adult criminals and basically play lip service. So my opinion of those incarcerated isnt very optimistic but then there is a small percentage that does make it to the outside and serve a productive life.

Originally posted by mgdzkm433:
What are we going to do about the kids who are going to watch live exicutions on tv?

You're only replacing violence with violence.

What are we going to do about those kids shooting multiple people?

Why don't we start with education on guns? Why don't we work on family values, why don't we work on placing more emphasis on spotting troubled teens? Why don't we crack down in our schools on kids teasing each other?

Taking firearms away isn't solving the problem. The problem is deeper than that. Why don't we work on getting rid of the ANGER the kids have? The gun didn't cause the kid to shoot anyone, their anger did that--you take away the gun--and you'll still have an angry kid--and they will STILL lash out, whether it's with a knife, a bomb, a 'illegal gun', starting a fire . . . The fact is, we'll still be turning out a kid into the world/society that has issues.

Schools have rule after rule about where kids can park, what time to be in class, if they can talk in class, what to wear . . . but we don't have or enforce rules that require the students to respect each other. Why don't we start with that? Most of these kids going in and shooting people are outcasts--kids who feel left out, ridiculed--THERE is the problem!