Columbine-like situation averted in GB

[MJZiggy]

Harv, he didn't blame Bush for what happened at Columbine! Just a little mix up in what people were talking about. now, stop the crabiness or I'll kick you out of our tailgating party for the AZ game

I'm not saying he blamed Bush for Columbine. He's blaming Bush for a violent, angry society that Jack is blaming for these school shootings (which is a valid point). Unfortunately, our society has been extremely violent and angry for about 25 years. Violent crime has actually stagnated in the last decade. It exploded in the late 70s/early 80s.

I wonder why that is...different people like to toss blame around to different places; tv or lack of parental supervision, but I'm not sure. I know violence is more pervasive because of tv in that we see it more, but back in the dark ages when I was a kid, there was plenty of playground bullying that went unchecked and people didn't shoot up the schools about it. Just thinking on my keyboard...

[Fosco33]

Harv, he didn't blame Bush for what happened at Columbine! Just a little mix up in what people were talking about. now, stop the crabiness or I'll kick you out of our tailgating party for the AZ game

I'm not saying he blamed Bush for Columbine. He's blaming Bush for a violent, angry society that Jack is blaming for these school shootings (which is a valid point). Unfortunately, our society has been extremely violent and angry for about 25 years. Violent crime has actually stagnated in the last decade. It exploded in the late 70s/early 80s.

I wonder why that is...different people like to toss blame around to different places; tv or lack of parental supervision, but I'm not sure. I know violence is more pervasive because of tv in that we see it more, but back in the dark ages when I was a kid, there was plenty of playground bullying that went unchecked and people didn't shoot up the schools about it. Just thinking on my keyboard...

Crack and inner city gangs accounted for most of the violence in 80's/early 90's (primarily in large cities like NY, LA, Chicago) - most of that has lessened.

These school shootings never happen in ghettos though - almost always some disturbed white kid. Is that b/c ghetto kids know they may be shot during that act or that school is a safe haven, or that the violent kids don't go to ghetto schools anymore?

It's not video games, TV, music or movies. If parents aren't responsible for raising their own kids, they shouldn't be parents. I say a lot of this can be attributed to latchkey kids with dual income families where parents don't pay attention to the most important things in their lives - their kids.

[mmmdk]

It's not video games, TV, music or movies. If parents aren't responsible for raising their own kids, they shouldn't be parents. I say a lot of this can be attributed to latchkey kids with dual income families where parents don't pay attention to the most important things in their lives - their kids.

Very true.

[GBRulz]

Fosco, it's much easier for parents to blame video games, TV and movies. Sad, but it's true.

Ticks me off because there are so many ways parents can avoid their kids watching this in the home if they took the time to do it. i.e. parental controls...read video game ratings,

[the_idle_threat]

I believe video games, movies and television play a part in this---especially first-person shooter video games. Walking around, "shooting" perceived enemies is such a common part of some kids' entertainment, it's no wonder that some fail to distinguish the fantasy from reality. Guns bring a feeling of empowerment, and when they are combined with the powerless feeling of being the object of bullying and social derision, school becomes a natural place to act out this fantasy-reality.

There are definitely other factors involved, like where the kids got the guns, and why nobody at home (or at school for that matter) saw it coming with these disturbed individuals. But a lot is done already to make it very difficult for kids to get guns---especially handguns. In fact, somebody probably did something illegal in order for these kids to get the hardware. Parents, teachers and friends are always asked what else they could have done to prevent the problem ... often they are asking these questions themselves. But we always seem to give our entertainment media's fixation with wanton violence as a form of recreation a free pass. Blame the parents ... blame the guns ... but don't blame the influences that might have formed the idea in the kids' heads that going around killing people is somehow OK, and actually might be fun.

[Fosco33]

I believe video games, movies and television play a part in this---especially first-person shooter video games. Walking around, "shooting" perceived enemies is such a common part of some kids' entertainment, it's no wonder that some fail to distinguish the fantasy from reality. Guns bring a feeling of empowerment, and when they are combined with the powerless feeling of being the object of bullying and social derision, school becomes a natural place to act out this fantasy-reality.

There are definitely other factors involved, like where the kids got the guns, and why nobody at home (or at school for that matter) saw it coming with these disturbed individuals. But a lot is done already to make it very difficult for kids to get guns---especially handguns. In fact, somebody probably did something illegal in order for these kids to get the hardware. Parents, teachers and friends are always asked what else they could have done to prevent the problem ... often they are asking these questions themselves. But we always seem to give our entertainment media's fixation with wanton violence as a form of recreation a free pass. Blame the parents ... blame the guns ... but don't blame the influences that might have formed the idea in the kids' heads that going around killing people is somehow OK, and actually might be fun.

Video games are fun - they aren't reality and anyone thinking that I tried shrooms b/c Mario ate them is I've never walked around looking for coins to eat, either.

Remember Montazuma's revenge for Atari, everytime I see electric wires in reallife, I walk away - not pausing for a minute before they disappear and quickly dash to wait for another. I don't run over snakes, either.

I played Wizardry and never cast a spell on anyone.

I played Bond in high school and never once thought of getting my hands on a bazooka launcher.

Grand Theft Auto is an awesome PS2 game - and extremely violent. Comparing our video games as kids to these games isn't fair. Simply put, kids under 13 shouldn't play them, IMO. If a parent buys games like these for their kids or doesn't monitor their internet usage or friends, they're

With the average age of these games in mid/high 20's, it's clear that most kids aren't playing this stuff.

If there's a game out there where the character goes to school, gets picked on by others and strategically plots a deadly vengence, I'd consider banning that game.

[woodbuck27]

" Ha, perhaps Tyrone.... but they left their stash out and wondered why the liquor had that watered down taste to it! Word of advice.... don't have your friends over and drink half of your parents whiskey and fill it back up with water! Gosh, and to think as a teenager you know everything " GBRulz

Nawww! You handle it.

Next time Dad wants a drink... you offer to mix it.

Upon arriving with said drink with lots of Rocks you remark...just as you take a sip...

"Geee Daddy, this stuff doesn't taste as nasty as the regular stuff you drink...pretty smooth."

[the_idle_threat]

I'm not talking about the old Atari video games, or early Nintendo. I'm not talking about Mario Kart. I'm talking about the first-person shooter games, like Doom, Duke Nukem, etc. I don't even know the names of the current ones since I haven't had much to do with video games since college.

There is no reason to believe that kids aren't playing these games. All it takes is one permissive parent among a group of friends, and they're playing the game---even if it's rated for adults. The Columbine kids freely admitted playing these games, and one of them even designed levels which incorporated Columbine High School as a setting. When I was in high school, kids played some of these games at school on school computers.

Kids have always played these games, and they continue to do so as the games are becoming more and more lifelike. And kids are more subject to the blurring of fantasy and reality than adults. It's a bad combo, IMO.

That being said, I'm not sure how to fix this problem. The first step, however, is to recognize that it is a problem. Far too many people are in denial about it.

[woodbuck27]

Ha, perhaps Tyrone.... but they left their stash out and wondered why the liquor had that watered down taste to it! Word of advice.... don't have your friends over and drink half of your parents whiskey and fill it back up with water! Gosh, and to think as a teenager you know everything

Anyhow.... the mayor of GB said earlier that he is having the District Attorney look into filing charges against the parents for this. None of the weapons were found at school, it was all in the homes. I agree 100%

I totally agree with that stance.

Your aware of what took place in Montreal a couple of weeks ago and the Mother of Son (who goes on a shooting spree and murders a beautiful young woman...and severly wounds a number of students in the teens) claims she had "no idea" her son was bent as he was?

Now he was 25 Years of age and on his own.Yet still...

BULLSHIT !

This case... DOUBLE BULLSHIT !!

It's a parents responsibility when a child/teen/older teen is living at home to pay attention...to monitor him/her presence ways and activities in the home and to be well aware... of what comes in or out of that home as well.

Since when, isn't parenting a responsibility?

I say if there's no precedent, make this a landmark case against the parents. I blame " the parents " in this extreme case.

They should be prosecuted.

[Fosco33]

I'm not talking about the old Atari video games, or early Nintendo. I'm not talking about Mario Kart. I'm talking about the first-person shooter games, like Doom, Duke Nukem, etc. I don't even know the names of the current ones since I haven't had much to do with video games since college.

Same here - and I agree with your statement (and even said so in my previous post). But I have played Bond and Grand Theft Auto - while getting more lifelike - it's still a stretch, IMO, to seek out bombs/guns and act upon fantasies. If you or I knew the answer, we'd be highly paid psychologists publishing books

[the_idle_threat]

It would be a stretch if I were saying all kids act on these fantasies. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that some kids act on these fantasies, and the fantasies are fueled in part by the experience they have in going around shooting virtual people.

People learn how to fly planes using flight simulators. It is so much of a stretch to believe a troubled teen might learn how to kill using a killing simulator---a realistic game that puts him in the role of a killer? Common sense tells me this is all-too-realistic. Experience (e.g. Columbine) tells me this is reality.

Translating the virtual reality into actual reality is as simple as getting ahold of a gun. Guns are very easy to aim and shoot.

[the_idle_threat]

Sorry to get all serious on you here, Fosco.

It just burns me that the prevailing attitude is that our culture's fixation with violence as entertainment cannot be the problem, and all the blame has to go onto parenting and access to guns. Parents can't control everything kids do, and despite all the laws and rules out there, a few guns will slip through the cracks into the wrong hands. These things should be examined when things go wrong of course, but we also need to look at our entertainment, especially when a form of it is modeling the exact behavior we find so objectionable. To date, we have generally given this aspect of the problem a free pass.

When you say it's a stretch that kids might translate the fantasy of killing people in Bond or GTA to the reality of their interactions with peers, you are giving the games a free pass. Kids are acting out the activities that appear in some of these games. It's so obvious, that it's a cop out to say we have to be psychology experts to understand this.

[Fosco33]

Sorry to get all serious on you here, Fosco.

It just burns me that the prevailing attitude is that our culture's fixation with violence as entertainment cannot be the problem, and all the blame has to go onto parenting and access to guns. Parents can't control everything kids do, and despite all the laws and rules out there, a few guns will slip through the cracks into the wrong hands. These things should be examined when things go wrong of course, but we also need to look at our entertainment, especially when a form of it is modeling the exact behavior we find so objectionable. To date, we have generally given this aspect of the problem a free pass.

When you say it's a stretch that kids might translate the fantasy of killing people in Bond or GTA to the reality of their interactions with peers, you are giving the games a free pass. Kids are acting out the activities that appear in some of these games. It's so obvious, that it's a cop out to say we have to be psychology experts to understand this.

No problem, man. That's why PR is great - civil discussion w/ varying opinions. Of course society and culture have ways of shaping youth - but I'm a Libertarian - so personal freedoms and responsibilities are paramount, IMO.

Here's a cut of the article on the kid who killed that principal yesterday - fits the 'profile' like a freakin glove...

CAZENOVIA, Wisconsin (AP) -- A teenager who pried open his family's gun cabinet brought two weapons to his rural school Friday and shot the principal to death after a struggle with adults and other students, authorities said.

No one else was hurt.

Eric Hainstock, 15, was taken into custody and charged as an adult with murder, District Attorney Patricia Barrett said. (Watch Barrett explain the charges against the 15-year-old -- 1:49 )

Authorities said the teen had complained about being teased by other students and decided to confront teachers and the principal using a shotgun and handgun taken from his parents' bedroom. The shooting also came one day after Weston Schools Principal John Klang gave him a disciplinary warning for having tobacco, according to a criminal complaint.

Witnesses said Hainstock walked in with the shotgun before classes began. A custodian, teachers and students wrestled with him, but he broke through, took out the handgun and shot Klang three times, Sheriff Randy Stammen said.

The custodian said the teen was a special-education student who told him he was there to kill someone, but did not say who.

"He was calm, but he was on a mission," said Dave Thompson, 43, who also has two children at the school.

Sophomore Shelly Rupp, 16, described Hainstock as a freshman with few friends and said he was "just weird in the head."

"He always used to kid around about bringing things to school and hurting kids," she said at a gas station nearby where students and townspeople had gathered.

Thompson said Hainstock first pointed a shotgun in a teacher's face. Thompson grabbed the gun, but the student then appeared to be reaching for another weapon, so Thompson and the teacher took cover. Thompson ran into a kitchen to call 911.

Klang then confronted the gunman. After the shots were fired, the principal, who was wounded, somehow wrestled him to the ground and swept the gun away, the complaint said.

Klang, 49, was shot in the head, chest and leg, authorities said. He died hours later at a hospital in Madison.

Sheriff Randy Stammen praised Klang's swift action. "The heroics of the people involved in this can't be understated," he said.

Hainstock said a group of kids had teased him by calling him names and rubbing up against him, the complaint said, and that he felt teachers and the principal would not do anything about it.

The complaint also said Hainstock had told a friend a few days earlier that Klang would not "make it through homecoming," referring to festivities planned for the school's homecoming weekend.

On Thursday, the principal had given Hainstock a disciplinary warning for having tobacco on school grounds, which was likely to mean an in-school suspension.

One student told a local reporter that Hainstock had recently been suspended for throwing a stapler at a teacher and for throwing a chair at the principal.

So, I'll be non-PC here.

You've got a kid w/ a history violent, mentally unstable behavior who smashes open a locked guncabinet after making veiled threats to other students in the past. Tick tock, tick tock.....

Back in the day, this kid probably wouldn't have been at a normal school - if at a school at all.

Students can be cruel - it's very common for kids to pick on each other. I know I was part of the 'in' crowd - but also faced ridicule (along w/ everyone else). Teachers do need to protect these heavily bullied kids.

But kids should also learn that telling administrators about threats is ok - that's partly how the situation was averted in GB if I recall.

[MJZiggy]

Yes, there was a lot of bullying going on and you're right. this kid showed enough signs that he should have been in a behavioral facility were anyone able to put the pieces together. I think they need to get the message out to kids that if one of their peers starts talking/behaving this way, it's a sign that something bad could happen and that person needs the kind of help he will get if a grownup knows what's going on.

As to the other part of this discussion, TV and games do not get a free pass with me. I did a paper in college on the efffects of television on kids and anyone who thinks the effects are inconsequential hasn't done the same research I did. My research was mainly on TV vs. learning, but the issue goes deeper than pure entertainment. As to the video games, in our school among my kids' friends there is the one permissive parent. The other parents will invite this kid over to their houses, but will not permit the kids to go visit this boy at his house as they don't approve of the games that they play.

You can't just blame one thing though. Even if the kids can get their hands on the games, I think parenting definitely has some causality here. Every day, we have a discussion in our family about what happened during the day. Everyone is free to share whatever they like and it is discussed. I know what's going on at home, at school and at friends' houses. And GBR, thanks for the tip about the drop ceiling. I will remember to keep an eye on it when teenage years hit. But there's a difference between hiding a pack of cigs in the house and a weapons cache. I just don't understand how it's possible to have all that in your house and not know it.

[GBRulz]

There is no doubt in my mind that violent video games and TV can have an effect on a kids mind. Especially if they don't have much of anything else in life....friends, not involved in school activities, parents who don't pay much attention to them, etc. but again, it all goes back to the parents being responsible. These violent video gams are almost always rated as M (mature), which is 17+ if I understand correctly. Ok, so why are you letting your 12 year old kid play this stuff? Get involved as a parent, know what your kid is doing.

I don't blame the teachers at all. Class sizes when I was going to school was never more than 20 kids in a class. I have a couple friends who are teachers, both H.S. and they have an average class size of 35-40 kids. You cannot expect a teacher to effectively handle classes of that size. Teachers are there to teach, not babysit the damn kids. So parents, stop blaming your kids fault on the schools. I don't go for that at all.

Amazing how a few kids in the above mentioned article all saw mental signs and problems with this kid, yet the parents did not. Also, I believe one kid mentioned that the shooter made a comment like "I'm not going to make it past homecoming". That kid should have immediately contacted the administration.

You also have to wonder how much the media affects kids decisions. If they didn't think what they did would be all over every internet news site and TV station, getting them all this attention, do you think the would still do it?

Zig, my apologies go out to the kids if I've ruined a hiding spot for them!!!