What have we done to our young people?

My Way News - Many Campus Threats After VTech Shooting:

In Michigan, police said they arrested a former Kalamazoo Valley Community College student who posted Internet messages praising the Virginia Tech shooting. Officials closed the college's two campuses through the weekend.

The 26-year-old man 'said his intent was just to evoke a response from other people,' sheriff's Lt. Terry VanStreain said. 'He got a response from us, I guarantee you that.'

From idle internet chatter like this case of a 26-year old former community college student in Michigan to a fake bomb in the locker of a middle school student in Colorado to three loaded guns brought to school by a high school student in the state of Washington, this AP story describes ten incidents since the tragedy at Virginia Tech at the start of this week.

This is not good news, although when you consider how many schools there are in this country and how many young people are either certifiably mental or "Jackass" wannabees, the total could easily be higher.

It is also not surprising. Research has shown that youth suicides tend to occur in clusters with one kid snapping and, as the news of that event is spread by the news media, others who have been on the brink step over the line.

And, it is not primarily a matter of gun control. Germany has tighter gun control laws than the US and lacks our "cult of the gun" and frontier mythos. Yet, as Bild noted in an editorial this week, even Germany has had school shootings. In Japan a few years ago, a man murdered several people at an elementary school armed only with a kitchen knife. And, don't forget the Iranian student who celebrated his graduation from UNC-CH by driving a rented car into a crowd of pedestrians and, only by a miracle, did not kill any of the nine people he struck with it.

What we ought to be asking is what are we doing to our children and young adults? Incidents of this sort were rare when gun laws were lax.

In some parts of the country it was once common for young hunters to bring their rifles to school during hunting season so they could get in a bit of hunting right after the end of the school day.

There must have been some incidents that haven't made it into the history books. My own paternal grandfather had to disarm a student with a handgun in a class he was teaching almost a century ago. But such occurrences must have been rare.

What has changed? Church and Sunday School attendance are likely down. Schools have adopted values clarification and cultural relativism that have undermined respect for traditional values. Progressive ideas on parenting and schooling have made discipline almost a thing of the past. The popular culture is now aimed primarily at young people and is saturated with violence and immorality of every description. The War on Drugs has turned many American cities into armed camps where the sound of gunfire hardly attracts any notice unless it is very close by. Crisis mongering over environmental and other concerns has led a few to action but more to the paralysis of despair. And there is the rampant drug abuse, both illegal narcotics and dangerous prescription drugs with known side effects including violent outbursts and suicidal ideation.

All of these influences have, for many young people, undermined any sense of hope and confidence in a better future awaiting the rising younger generations.