Just saw the news this morning. Frustrated "Mentally Troubled" boy with a history of fighting and mental health issues including suicide wounds 4 before taking his own life. Everything about the story sounds lame.

This situation compels me to consider the quote that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. How many times are we going to have to repeat this particular scenario before it sinks in that something must be fixed?

Hint: Gun Control Legislation isn't going to solve the problem.

If people admit that they will have to admit that the system and we are failing our children. Most people would rather blame something or someone else rather that admit responsibility.

where was this? i haven't seen it on the news yet. link?

MSNBC news report
SuccessTech Academy (Bill Gates' Foundation ???) in Cleveland, OH

I'm so burnt out, sick and tired of this foolishness I can't even think of an intelligent problem solving discussion.

Want to just go build a hut in the woods and be a hermit.

Mind you a hermit with a wife and child, cable tv, internet access, resturants and grocery stores conveniently nearby (but not to close as to drive down the property value of my hut)....

Oh the hell with it!! I'm just going to stay in the suburbs and turn off my tv/radio.

Don't forget the one in Pennsylvania today that got thwarted:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/10/11/student.arsenal/index.html

I'm going to join you in the refraining. Other than to point out that every time I hear the media call a youth/young adult a "child" I want to reach through my TV/radio and grannyslap the anchor.

These events have become all too frequent, and are a sad testimony to the society we live in. IIRC, this is the sixth incident this school year, either happened or thwarted by authorities. I long for the days when school violence consisted of a brief altercation on the playground with fists, NOT GUNS or KNIVES!! Everybody walked away from those, maybe a little scuffed up, but alive.
I have already heard the anti-gun folks talking more gun control. Guns aren't the problem. The people who use guns illegally are the problem. When I was in high school, 35-45% of the male population of the school (1500+ students) had firearms in their vehicles during hunting season and nary a soul was ever shot or even threatened to my knowledge. A much higher percentage carried a knife and yes, you guessed it, no one was ever cut or stabbed. Now we need armed LEO on campus all day, everyday. What the H*** happened? Have we allowed ourselves and our society to stray that far from civility?

While I think its good that this person was stopped, does it seem like the prosecuter is trying to beat the drum a little loud on this case?

He's shown posing with the boy's "huge arsenal of weapons" when the fine print tells that only one of those was a real firearm, the rest were all BB guns that look like real weapons. The print also states that there was no ammunition for the single firearm in the house. And pardon me but since when is a 9mm rifle an assault rifle, isn't a rifle that fires a pistol cartridge typically refered to as a carbine? Finally, grenades are not weapons of mass destruction. Weapons of mass destruction only encompass biological, chemical and radiological weapons.

Again, I think the boy needed to be stopped. His parents were enabling him, not stepping up and acting like parents. He obviously needed some sort of counciling long before this situation reached the point where he was obtaining guns and building grenades. But it sounds an awful lot like a prosecuter setting up to run for office, or some other type of politiking.

Success Tech Academy is a public school in the Cleveland City School District. It may be (not entirely sure) one of their alternative schools, which are attempts to educate kids who are clearly on the road to dropping out or being suspended. Some of these programs are incredibly successful, some less so.

Ironically, Success Tech had a metal detector screening program a couple of years ago, but it was removed and relocated during a round of budget cuts because of the low incidence of violence at Success Tech.

Incidents of violence and even of murder-suicide among teenagers is nothing new (go back and re-read Romeo and Juliet). What we may be seeing in the current media feeding-frenzy are attempts to make opportunistic use of these tragedies to fuel agendas such as gun control, school choice and the like.

Frank2135, who serves on a board of education, thankfully not in Cleveland

"I long for the days when school violence consisted of a brief altercation on the playground with fists ... Everybody walked away from those, maybe a little scuffed up, but alive."

"If people admit that they will have to admit that the system and we are failing our children. Most people would rather blame something or someone else rather that admit responsibility."

"His parents were enabling him, not stepping up and acting like parents."

"Have we allowed ourselves and our society to stray that far from civility?"

A) Your kids go to a school that is so politically correct that the kids will be EXPELLED for fighting. Do you think this helps or hinders bullying and intimidation problems? How do you think these rules will help or hinder the lives of your children ten years from now?

B) The system is not reponsible for your kids and their behavior. YOU* are responsible for their behavior. If YOU* don't like what they're being exposed to at their school, YOU* can remove them from the school and either put them in another school, a private school, or homeschool them. YOU* have options, but they take some thought, and probably more financial control than you're exerting now.

C) Most parent/child relationships have been reversed. The children are calling the shots, the parents obey.

D) The veneer of civilization we wear is so thin that it is virtually non-existent. We are the same people as the citizens of Rome fifteen centuries ago. In Edward Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, he cited laziness, softness, loss of civic virtue, and outsourcing their duties as some of the reasons for its downfall. Which of these do not apply to us as a country right now, and have for some time?

We have been trained, and trained well, not to think for ourselves, to do as we're told, to be good consumers (on credit), not to stand up for what we know is right, not to care about anything of an evil nature unless it is approaching our front door.

(*I refer to the editorial YOU, not the specific YOU.)

I suspect that the people who peruse this website, actively or anonymously, are those who either suspect or KNOW that all of this is wrong, and want to make some plan, and/or make some decisions that could possibly change their small part of their existance.

On a wholescale, countrywide scale, I think it is simply hopeless to expect. The avalanche has already begun.

Sue

Time to Get Tuff! Time to do something Radically Opposite and Different! Long Overdue High Time! (Train and) Arm the Teachers. Have Armed Security Guards, even School Police, (as Rediclous as this should *Ordinarily* be!), -in and around the School. For Real! I'm Serious!

*Don't* Come Down on the Little Kid who brings a plastic Squirt Gun to Show and Tell! To then say that you have suppossedly Gotten Tuff.

*Do* Meet the Real (and Wrongful) Force out there, -with Equal to Overwhelming Force of your Own. There is Real Proper Tuffness. Then and There you are Really Properly Addressing the Problem!

We as a People, Culture, and Nation are here like the Kid back in School, -who keeps on getting Hit! -But Amazingly keeps on Standing there!, -Taking it!

Quit being so Darned Nice! Niceness has many Places in Life, -but this is Clearly *Not* one of them!

Seriously and For Real!!!

Yes, -There've always've been examples of this. But Romeos and Julietts used to come along in the Bluest of Blue Moons!, -once in every Great Whiles! But nowadays a Jonesboro or Columbine seems to come along what, -every Two or Three Months or so!

Bingo...You've hit the nail on the head with that point Susan. You guys ever watch primetime TV? Ever notice how the Dads on TV are portrayed as buffoons, while the kids are shown to be wise beyond their years? The kids on TV disobey their parents, talk back, slam doors & the kids watching it at home for 4-5 hours a night think that it's normal to be that way. I may be stretching, but I think I'm on to something. We all would be better off with less TV. Who knows, kids may actually talk to their parents if they didn't have the TV on so long...they may start to look-up to their mom & dad. Kids may even learn to pick-up a book every know and then...wouldn't that be something?

In a Worst Case Scenario, -as your last paragraph seems to describe, -I think there *may* still be "Pull Out" Hope for the Society and Country! Its like a Long Collapsing House, thats Routinely Ignored! Finally the Real Collapse occurs! In an Instant with the Inhabitants in it. Then!, -We may Finally Get Up the Will!, -and Know!

Question is then, -Will we be Strong and Quick Enuff to Catch, Stop, and then "Reverse Back on Up", -the Collapsing Walls?!

Or will we be like the Trapped Animal who only Finds Out, -once the Cage Door Slams Down Behind it! Then Too Weak and All to get the Door Back Open?! (Better Hurry Up!, Before our given X Enemy, -whoever it is, -Comes Round to Check on his Traps! Or will we be Too Slow and Soft even there?!).

Its also Important to Know and Remember!, -"In Times Like These", -That its still a Good Ways from All Lost and Bad and All! There's yet Plenty of Decent, Sensible People around! You See and Meet them Every Day! For every Harris and Klebold out there, -there's at least 2,000 OK & Normal, -to Good, to Great!, -Students out there! The Great Silent Majority! (Well maybe that Majority should in some ways, -Quit being so Silent about it!).

Problem is, -there's a Good Deal of Societal Rot and Water Left Running!, -too! Certainly Plenty More! Than in Earlier Times and Days!

"The system is not reponsible for your kids and their behavior. YOU* are responsible for their behavior. If YOU* don't like what they're being exposed to at their school, YOU* can remove them from the school and either put them in another school, a private school, or homeschool them. YOU* have options, but they take some thought, and probably more financial control than you're exerting now." When I said the system I meant that WE as adults are failng the children not only our own but all children.

"When I said the system I meant that WE as adults are failng the children not only our own but all children."

Yes, I know that is what you meant. I'm sorry that I didn't make that clear.

And it is sad and frustrating.

Sue

Speaking of mentally disturbed, the CA governor has signed into law SB 777, which, among other things, will allow male students to enter female restrooms and lockers rooms, and vice versa. The assumption is that the enterers (is that a word?) will be "transgender students," but what 17 year old male student, hormones raging, would pass up a chance to legally wander thru the girls locker room???

source

Uh, What the &$%_)@#()&*""!!!!!!

What is this transgender nonsense???!!! If they are a boy, then they belong in the boy's facilities. If a girl, then they don't.

Transgender this. Any boy (anatomy determinant, to be precise) that walks in on one of my daughters unwelcomed (maybe even if they welcome him, I am a dad after all), could face IMMEDIATE TRANSGENDER REASSIGNMENT, via involuntary removal of their male parts. Until they lose the cajones, they simply can't be trusted, I don't care how effeminate they act.

Yet another example of stupid policies.

"...Yet another example of stupid policies..."

Welcome to the wonderful world of California. Which is why we are in Wyoming. You wanna buy our house in CA???

I'm guessing it started with the later half of my generation when they effectively took the board of ed out of the school system. One of the reasons that two high school teachers I know recently retired was that they aren't backed up by the administration when it comes to discipline in our county.

"...discipline..."

In our schools? I fear that went out many many years ago, never to be seen again...

I see bth sides to that. Sure discipline is needed, but then some people take it too far. My MIL thinks kids need disciplined if they don't sit and stare at the TV while she watches Opra and she thinks smacking, screaming, and swearing at kids is ok instead of spanking when needed. She disciplines when something annoys her not when something was done that was wrong. I saw the same thing happening in shcool as well, the teacher going by their own rules/morals would discipline for their own reasons. Once basic right and wrong became a gray area and open to interpretation discipline and when to and when not to became useless.

"Sure discipline is needed, but then some people take it too far."

That is not discipline, that is abuse.

Sue

Try explaining that to your MIL.

"Try explaining that to your MIL."

Please see my post on the Survival Forum/Concerning the "Altoids Tin Survival Kit", near the end, I believe. The subject (evolving, as usual) was about practice in dealing with amputations.

An acquaintance once mentioned that he considered his MIL as part of the food chain... preferably a shark's. He said it would be an interesting contest, with the personalities as closely matched as they were.

Sue

"...the teacher going by their own rules/morals..."

You are right. And that, unfortunately, is the real world. Who hasn't had a boss/stupervisor who made their own rules up as they went along. Maybe experiencing that in school will help prepare the little brats for what comes next. I had one teacher who would what you with the narrow edge of one of those thick, brass tipped yardsticks, whenever she felt like it. Did me no lasting damage that I can see...

We should start a MIL thread, I had a dandy...