26 thoughts on “Want To Reduce Mass Shootings?”

1. Why would it? It’s not like divorce is a recent thing. In earlier eras, kids stuck in unhappy marriages, where Daddy beat Mommy and/or drank himself stupid, certainly couldn’t have been much better.

   If you’re really wondering why kids are shooting kids, the answer is dropout rates. In 1960, about 27% of kids dropped out of high school. As of 2009, that’s down to 8%.

   Simply put, in earlier eras, the misfit kids who would have shot up the school quit (or were not-so-gently pushed out) before it became a problem.

   1. That’s certainly part of it, but the other recent thing is the feminization of the educational system and associated war on boys.

      1. What, boys in the 1950s weren’t expected to sit quietly and listen to the teacher? Elementary ed in the 1950s wasn’t full of women teachers?

         1. There were a lot more men teachers then, better able to command respect from the boys, and there was a lot more rough activity allowed during recess.

            1. There were also “manly” classes still in school, like shop classes, and Home Ec for the girls, with a few guys taking Home Ec to get close to a girl they were sweet on, or for other reasons.

               Of course, I don’t know that all of the males who have remained in the school system are all that great as role models, either, and my opinion of their “model” role diminishes any time I hear of another one sexually abusing the students in their charge.

            2. There were a lot more men teachers then – Not really. 31% male in 1961, 29.9% male in 2006.

            3. That doesn’t break it down by grade. There were more male elementary teachers then than now.

            4. There were a lot more male elementary principles then.

            5. Again, not really. Here’s a PDF dissertation about the lack of male elementary teachers. The relevant chart, on page 13 of the article, shows that male elementary school teachers has never been above 32%, and pre-1970 the male ratio rarely broke 20%.

               Elementary school teaching has been predominately a woman’s job since 1870. The male ratio has never been above 42%

            6. It was reported that in 1996, less than 15% of all teachers in elementary schools were male (Snyder & Hoffman, & Geddes, 1996). According to NEA (2004) that number had decreased to nine percent.

               http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1276&context=doctoral

   2. Divorce isn’t recent, but the change in parenting demographics actually is a relatively recent thing. Children’s living arrangements look astonishingly piecewise linear when graphed: A century of “85% of kids live with both parents” until the late 1960s, 15 years of “70% of kids live with both parents” from the 90s until today, and a nearly straight slope in between connecting the two. The prevalence of “not living with parents” and “living with father only” hasn’t changed noticeably, and so “living with mother only” absorbed all the difference, roughly tripling.

   3. Yes, Chris, divorce is always because the man is a alcoholic wife beater….I think you’re looking for the NOW website….it’s 2 links down on the left.

      1. Heh. My thoughts as well. Thanks.

2. Men should have a real shot at getting custody, especially of male children.

3. Baloney. It’s the mental illness. It typically strikes young men in their late teens, young women in their late twenties. Nobody knows why, that’s just the way it is.

4. I’ll vote for the ‘having-no-daddy-in-the-house-is-OK’ side in this argument. Is it optimal? No. Do I think JUST having a ‘dad’ in the house would solve this guys shooting up the country stuff? Again, I gotta vote no.

   There were any number of boys I knew who grew up sans dads in the 60’s and 70’s. They didn’t shoot mom in the face nor thin out the closest kindergarten. That’s not a family problem, nor even a societal problem in that we don’t hug them enough or tell them how good they are or could be.

   I think a much bigger deal is a TOTAL lack of young boys and teen boys being allowed to be MALE! Young girls are allowed to be as girly or rough and tumble as they want to be.

   Boys are allowed to be whatever the women around will allow.

   Quite often they are told to be some sort of non-male type person who is NOT allowed to do the things young men used to do. They can sing, dance, draw, learn to cook or ‘do’ hair, they can even play traditional male sports. But there’s a line of ‘male’ activity that’s not to be crossed.

   One of those things was learning to own, fire and handle real guns. If not that initially, we had bb guns, pellet guns, sling shots, bows and arrows, ALL of which are out of the question now. Most of the boys and teens I know aren’t even allowed to HANDLE a knife in the kitchen, much less anywhere else.

   In the early / mid 1960’s, when I was in CUB SCOUTS, one of the big deals for all of us was getting a Cub Scout pocket knife. For those not in the loop, Cubs are aged 7 to 11, and most of us got our knives at 8 or 9. And most of us carried that knife to school, daily, until we got a newer knife.

   Moving up into the Boy Scouts, we usually got a Boy Scout knife, AND because we did camping trips, many of us had a 5″ or 6″ sheathed knife and a hatchet. The large knife and hatchet were taken to most weekly Scout meetings most often on bicycles, the pocket knives were carried daily.

   The guns, sling shots, bows and arrows were something we had in the Boy Scouts, up to and including .22s and shotguns. Yes there was training, yes there were rules, yes there was a time and place. But those things were the norm then, not like now, an aberration or something sneered at and called dangerous.

   So, given all that used to happen and what boys / teens did or had access to, is it that we were SO much more trustworthy then, or is it that boys are SO untrustworthy now?

   I’ll go further and elaborate on what I said earlier about dads in the home.

   Even homes with ‘dads’ isn’t the answer. Mostly because 99% of the ‘men’ I know under 50, turned in their spines, voices and balls right after the Three Ring Ceremony. [one on her hand, one on his hand, one in his nose….] And I can’t see how ‘men’ who don’t act, talk, dress or live as being ‘male’, can raise sons who are ‘male’.

   It’d be like attempting to teach a bird to fly, and we don’t have wings. You can’t teach what you don’t know and can’t do. Including something as simple as being a fine, upstanding, gun owning, non-murdering, helpful man in America.

   1. You’d probably like http://artofmanliness.com/ , if you aren’t already familiar with the site. Lots in line with strength and dignity, not the radical feminist idea of the brutish thug.

5. I am waiting to see what meds he was on. That is one the key things that changed since the 1950’s, the type of medication being used to ‘help” those with behavioral problems.

   http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/02/02/top-ten-legal-drugs-linked-to-violence.aspx

6. Not enough male role models => mass shootings
   Seems a long bow to stretch.

   1. No longer than “if we’d banned high-capacity magazines, this wouldn’t have happened.”

      1. Fine, if we’d banned high-capacity magazines, mass killings would still likely happen.

         Did saying that suddenly make “Not enough male role models => mass shootings” more likely?

         1. Did saying that suddenly make “Not enough male role models => mass shootings” more likely?

            Nah, but it does make you a little less hypocritical. And that’s a worthy goal of its own.

            1. Wouldn’t I first need to be hypocritical before I could be made less hypocritical??

            2. When have you not been hypocritical?

7. They discuss the subject (in passing) of how boys are treated in schools these day in this book.

   If I can find my copy I think it references a book by the authors on this specific subject.

8. Oh, come on, everybody. The way to reduce mass shootings is to pass a law against mass shootings. Why isn’t this obvious to everyone?

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