> > > > I guess by now you all have seen on CNN, or elsewhere, about the 13 year old boy who shot some kids at the Fort Gibson Middle School. Fort Gibson is less than 20 minutes from my house. This is a little too close to home for me. I have 2 kids in school and I don't even want to think of it happening to them. Talk about a shock to hear. Fort Gibson is a very small town, with a population of less than 10,000. If it can happen there, I guess it truly *can* happen anywhere.
> > > >
> > > > Drac "Still a bit shocked by the news" imas
> > >
> > > oh my gosh.... no, I hadn't heard about that. How horrible.... how wasteful... how useless.... how stupid. I suppose it would be a shock to anyone anywhere, hearing about a teenager shooting people. It has every other time. Of course, your statement about "If it happens there, it can happen anywhere" isn't, from what I've seen and thought about, necessarily true. I don't think (at least I don't remember) that any of the shootings happened in cities. They were all in suburban or rural areas. I really truly DON'T worry about it happening here - especially not at my school. You (the everyone-included you) will probably say "but hey that's what everyone at all the high schools think"... but at my school, it's true.
> > >
> > > uni"loners do not exist at my school. none of the "signs" around the kids who have done the shootings are at my school"peg
> >
> > Now just because some one is picked on or is a loner does not mean they will turn psychotic. I was a loner and I never hurt anyone. I read comic books with violence, I watched violent TV, I saw violent movies but I never thought about blowing my class mates away. I thank my parents, who while they allowed me to watch a lot of TV were also attentive to being sure I didn't belive it was real. I think some parents are so oblivious to there children they don't even bother to have the "everything you see on TV isn't real" conversation.
> >
> > Spider-freedomofspeachshouldbeprotected,gunsshouldberegulated-Boy
>
> That's a hard one, you know. I'm the same way, but it's so hard to tell exactly where the difference comes in between the way I see those movies, comics etc, and the way some future violent psycho sees them.
> I love action movies and similar stuff, not for violence but for excitement. On the other hand, I also love comedy movies and all sorts of other things too, so maybe it's just having that wider perspective that keeps things on the right level. When I see *real* violence in a movie I can't bear to watch it. I can happily see Arnie blow away any number of guys with a gun bigger than his whole upper body, but if I have to see a serious movie in which a guy punches his wife or something it disturbs me so much, well, even visualising something like that as I write it is bad enough.
> But I just don't know what a person's thought processes might be like when they can't distinguish the former type of screen violence from the latter.
> Small kids totally should not be allowed to see some of the things that are available out there.
>
> Brunnen-"that was my random collection of loosely connected thoughts for the day"G

I have the same movie experiences. I once totally freaked out my friends by screaming that I wasn't going to watch whatever was on the VCR and storming out -- it was some guy punching another guy for no apparent reason and well beyond the guy's being able to defend, or even support himself. But I love a good shoot-em-up.

My conflict is that I work for a major media conglomerate, in the legal department, no less. I see up close the lawsuits filed against a huge corporation because it's got to be SOMEONE's fault that someone's kid goes wacko after watching a movie or listening to a record. For heaven's sake, I remember hitting my brother over the head with a rolling pin because Snuffy Smith's wife did that to him in the comic strip. I think the only answer is to stop searching for the blame in the aftermath, and start doing anything and everything toward prevention. And it starts with talking to your kids.