The Human Condition..............

[JJ_Miller]

I was at the farm and my mother and I watched some of the media coverage regarding the mass shootings in the US and Germany. She looked at me and asked " did you ever want to shoot me or your dad " ? The question kinda shocked me, never having thought of harming my parents or friends. Then she said " you had a gun when you started walking and we never gave it a second thought "

I was lucky enough to be raised on a working farm. We had cattle, horses and hogs. Our house sat at the end of a dirt road half a mile from the gate and hard road. There wasn't much to get into. It was 32 miles to town.

I grew up with a team of horses, ole Tom and Charlie. They plowed our garden, cut and raked our hay ( remember hay stacks ? ) and generally did what needed done. I spent the summers building fence and chasing cattle. The fall was for canning the garden truck and butchering a hog and steer. The winter was mostly fun ( except for school ) As far back as I can recall I hunted with my dad, then I turned 7 and was deemed safe with my Stevens .22 or a 410 single shot. I fed cattle all winter for a dollar a day to buy my first revolver, a Ruger of course, a blued Single Six.

I can remember the burden of the '68 Gun Control Act. I used to gather up my change and walk a mile to my uncle's little country store and buy a box of 22 Long Rifle shells. Then one day my uncle told me he could no longer sell me .22 shells as it was now against the law. It was enough to make an eight year old kid really mad. He could see how mad I was and he thought a minute and said " bring me a note from your mom and you can have the shells ". So I walked the mile home, got my note, returned to the store and he sold me the .22 ammo. He is gone now and enough time has passed that I don't think BATF will say too much. I did not understand until much later that the Government was trying to protect me from myself.

We had one TV channel. The only time we got to watch it was Saturday mornings. Cartoons started at 7 am. You know real cartoons, Tom and Jerry, The Road Runner and Wiley Coyote, Elmer Fudd, and Foghorn Leghorn the Rooster. What ever happened to cartoons ?

I did not know you could buy fish at the store until I went to High School. If we wanted fish we went to the pond and caught a mess of bass and bluegill.

I learned one should not push ones pony into the creek for a bath, unless one wants two perfectly formed bruises in the shape of rear hooves on ones chest.

We were up with the sun, fed and told to get out of the house until lunch. Kids did not stay in the house through the day. We were busy with chores or building forts to play in.

My father was a teacher through the week and preached on Sundays and mom was a RN. We all were farmers. There was no shortage of willow switches along the creek in front of the house. These were applied often and with gusto on me and my sister, but we were often guilty and we expected no less.

I guess the point of all this is that I grew up kinda wild, always had a firearm of some sort but NEVER EVER thought of harming my parents. I had respect for them both.

I cannot fathom how society has come to the point where kids kill their parents and friends. What is missing today ?

Maybe we need to bring back Elmer Fudd and his friends....................................

[alnitak]

Here, here....

Nice post!

[AmBraCol]

My father was a teacher through the week and preached on Sundays and mom was a RN. We all were farmers. There was no shortage of willow switches along the creek in front of the house. These were applied often and with gusto on me and my sister, but we were often guilty and we expected no less.

I guess the point of all this is that I grew up kinda wild, always had a firearm of some sort but NEVER EVER thought of harming my parents. I had respect for them both.

I cannot fathom how society has come to the point where kids kill their parents and friends. What is missing today ?

You answered your own question - right there. Kids today are not disciplined - nor are they raised to believe in anything beyond themselves nor are they taught responsibility. It's a sad world we live in right now. Gov't trying to save folks from themselves - it just doesn't work. I saw a guy yesterday "fulfilling the law" - he had a helmet on his head, sort of. It was covering the back of his head and held up in front by the bill of his ball cap, not fastened in place by anything more than gravity. He probably thought he "looked cool" - but idiot was written all over him. And worse is that he had a small child on the bike with him as well. So the government's laws have done nothing to change that guy's mind, he's still doing things his way and will possibly die young. So be it. If you're gonna be stupid it's gonna hurt, maybe kill you. And those are lessons that our society no longer teaches kids. Your pony taught you about tryin' to push a horse into water... To many kids today have no thought beyond their next video game exploit and no idea of creativity or discipline. THAT'S what's missing today. Remember the old adage "An idle mind is satan's workshop."?

[Grizz]

I'll tell you what's missing: Jesus of Nazareth. Replaced by human nature, the antithesis of Godliness.

[kimwcook]

I agree with what's been said one hundred percent. I never, never thought of killing my parents, but I did but a hurt on the old man when I thought I was big enough at the age of twelve and he smacked my mom one too many times. I too got the switch/belt many a times and most I deserved, but again the old man would go over board and I'd go in the house with bleeding belt welts across my backside from ankle to head. It can be over done, like anything can. I fully support discipline and a good paddling. If only most people would be consistent in it's useage and start at a young age. It definitely works.

I too didn't come into the house until lunch and then again at dinner. Outside was our world and that's where my mom made us stay until we had a reason to be inside. Did the chore thing and raised lots of bottle heads, cattle, horses, chickens and even pigeons.

[rock-steady]

I second what Grizz said. Our rulers have made God unwelcome in our government and our pubic schools. This leaves a vacuum for something else to fill. I'm reminded of a Bible verse, 1 Peter 5:8 King James Version:

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.

[Hobie]

I remember ASKING PERMISSION to come in when it was cold. Otherwise we were outside. Nobody cared where we went or did, UNLESS we did wrong. Just about anybody in town (and I lived in several) could administer a spanking with nary a word from anyone else. I once played a football game that used every front yard for a whole block. If I was at somebody else's house (or somebody was at my house) a quick phone call confirmed lunch plans and we ate where we were and went right back outside. One learned to avoid certain cooks! I was well treated all over West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia even by people I NOW know had next to nothing. "Ma'am" and "sir" were ingrained in me loooong before I enlisted. I knew how to make a bed with "hospital" corners, too. Did it EVERY morning. I remember when we locked our doors. That stood out! We camped out in the back yard in the summer. Nobody came out to check on us. No need. When I was in high school we all carried knives. There were a couple of fights but nobody pulled a knife or gun. Yeah, many of us had our shotguns in the car (if/when we drove). I remember a friend of mine bringing his collection of WWII guns to school for history class. I think the photos were in the yearbook. He was 14. No problem. Another friend and I were asked to kill pest animals on school grounds, with shotguns, unsupervised (mostly, we did get asked what we'd gotten). Jeff Cooper was right, the past is another country.

[86er]

You may find this unbelievable but when I was in 4th grade in New York (City) I bought a rifle to school for show and tell. My Mom helped me carry it into the classroom. Nobody thought anything of it and the teacher let the kids pass it around and touch it. When we buried a time capsule in the school yard I put in it some loaded M1 Garand clips, and a box of 12b shotgun cartridges. We had to state the significance of what we put in it. My 4th grade mentality was that it would show people in the future the previous ammunition technology we had.

Years later in High School on Long Island, NY there was a small abandoned farm that bordered the school parking lot. It was about 200 acres. There were wild rabbits, pheasants and quail on that acreage. My friend Chris and I would take a single shot shotgun and tie a string between the barrel and stock, drape it over our neck and wear a long coat to cover it. We'd put the gun in our school locker. During lunch we would go across the parking lot to the farm and shoot birds or rabbits. We'd be back in time for the next class. All the teachers knew we had the guns in our locker and a lot of them saw us with dead birds/animals. We never did anything stupid with the guns and did not expose them to other people. A lot of kids knew we had them too. This was in the early 80's!

Now that school has a barbed wire fence around it, metal detectors and x-ray machines when you go in, a guard at every entrance and a police officer that is assigned at the school. The old farm is still there and you can hear the cackle of pheasant and the whistle of quail in the morning. People there hear the sounds but have absolutely no idea what it is making the sounds. What happened? I don't know. The neighborhood is for the most part the same. Most of the families in our income bracket eventually moved out due to high taxes and a younger generation of technology types with higher salaries than my folks and friends families moved in. I have one friend who stayed there with his wife and two kids thinking it was a great place to grow up and raise a family. They had their head in the sand and were in denial for years. Now that the kids are 10 yrs old they realize, and admit it is not the same place where we grew up. They are leaving for Colorado next year.

We used to walk on the railroad tracks with a shotgun hunting birds and rabbits. The train conductors and some passengers would wave as the locomotive went by and we stepped aside. Now the Railroad Police come and tell you that you are trespassing. Obviously the conductors or passengers are the ones calling the police. Why?

I can only blame the media. I never remember seeing news every day of shootings, violent crimes and acts of destruction. I think they were still there but just not emphasized or covered in the news. The big crime on the news was I gew up was the Amityville Horror, David Berkowitz and Martin Tankleff. We never saw Joe Blow that shot some guy in the street.

[Charles]

I doubt if things and people are different now than when we were kids. Like you I never had the slighest thought about harming my parents. I didn't know anybody who did. UNTIL I enrolled in Augusta Military Academy (Ft. Defiance, VA) in 1958. I was absolutely astounded to find that quite a few of the Cadets there hated their parents with a passion. No doubt some of them would have done their parents harm.

I went to Augusta to get a better education that what was offered in my home town on the border. It was a common thing for folks who had the resources to send their kids to private schools for the last few years of school. I took to it, like a duck to water. I liked wearing the uniform, marching in formation and taking care of a Garand rifle. I also liked chasing the girls at the nearby ritzy Virginia finishing schools.

But more than a few of the cadets were there, because they were troubled kids who couldn't function well in their homes and needed the discipline and structure of the military life.

The long and short of it, is there were plenty of kids back then who would and did do harm to their parents. They were just not part of our world. Most of us were lucky enough to grow up in homes where we were loved, disciplined and taken care of. Not all kids of our generation were that lucky. I will also admit that divorce was rare as were working mothers. The homes were more stable back then, than they are now.

[rangerider7]

I read a study by Harvard University just before I retired from teaching and coaching that said " every generation from the end of WWll has been more violent, less religious, more self centered, and more immoral than the one before it". They also said " this trend will continue until a major change or turning point in history takes place. I was kinda hoping that this bad economy might be it, but I dought it. The reasons are to long to list, but parenting was the major cause and the related environment. If parents would take the teachings of Jesus and use them with their parenting it couldn't help but get better. IMHO

[AmBraCol]

I read a study by Harvard University just before I retired from teaching and coaching that said " every generation from the end of WWll has been more violent, less religious, more self centered, and more immoral than the one before it". They also said " this trend will continue until a major change or turning point in history takes place. I was kinda hoping that this bad economy might be it, but I dought it. The reasons are to long to list, but parenting was the major cause and the related environment. If parents would take the teachings of Jesus and use them with their parenting it couldn't help but get better. IMHO

Anyone remember Dr. Spock? Not the guy on Star Trek but the one who wrote a book about the dangers of disciplining children. I am amazed at the difference between how kids relate to my wife and me and to their parents. We get respect even when the kids don't respect their own folks. I've seen unbearable brats become docile and loving children - just because we set boundaries and let them know they are loved enough to get whacked when they need it. And rarely do they need it. Kids need love and discipline. In that order. One without the other leads to anger and acting out - at best. Consistency is also important to the mix. Too many folks smack their kids around out of anger, and only when they are tired or frustrated or fed up or all the above. The rest of the time Johnny or Susie can do whatever the heck they want with no consequences.

[Hobie]

I doubt if things and people are different now than when we were kids. Like you I never had the slighest thought about harming my parents. I didn't know anybody who did. UNTIL I enrolled in Augusta Military Academy (Ft. Defiance, VA) in 1958. I was absolutely astounded to find that quite a few of the Cadets there hated their parents with a passion. No doubt some of them would have done their parents harm.

I went to Augusta to get a better education that what was offered in my home town on the border. It was a common thing for folks who had the resources to send their kids to private schools for the last few years of school. I took to it, like a duck to water. I liked wearing the uniform, marching in formation and taking care of a Garand rifle. I also liked chasing the girls at the nearby ritzy Virginia finishing schools.

But more than a few of the cadets were there, because they were troubled kids who couldn't function well in their homes and needed the discipline and structure of the military life.

The long and short of it, is there were plenty of kids back then who would and did do harm to their parents. They were just not part of our world. Most of us were lucky enough to grow up in homes where we were loved, disciplined and taken care of. Not all kids of our generation were that lucky. I will also admit that divorce was rare as were working mothers. The homes were more stable back then, than they are now.

I remember driving by AMA and all the cadets saluting as they walked down the PO or corner store. You might like to know they have a MUSEUM displaying the schools history and the property is owned by some sort of world church group. I've got to be frank, I was always so glad to not have to go to a place like that. I liked running around fishing and such after school.

My mom didn't work until I was about 13. She was a school librarian. She was always there.

[ccw9mm]

I cannot fathom how society has come to the point where kids kill their parents and friends. What is missing today ?

... raised on a working farm ... 32 miles to town ... spent the summers building fence and chasing cattle ... canning the garden truck and butchering a hog and steer ... hunted with my dad ... turned 7 and was deemed safe with my Stevens .22 or a 410 single shot ... We had one TV channel [cartoons] ... The only time we got to watch it was Saturday mornings ... fish [at the] pond and caught [bass and bluegill] ... Kids did not stay in the house through the day. We were busy with chores ... My father was a teacher through the week and preached on Sundays and mom was a RN. We all were farmers. There was no shortage of willow switches ...

There you said it. We need to bring back personal responsibility, family responsibility, a work ethic, discipline. Funny, how simple that is. IMO, that would be 80% of it.

The rest would come from side-stepping all the horrible outside influences that some folks can find so difficult to control. ie, Home schooling of children, to avoid crappy government-run education; finding enough time and finances between working two or more jobs to have at least one parent/mentor/tutor around 24x7; avoiding the morass of advertising and degenerate modern messages flung in the face of everyone everywhere; and, finding some way to avoid being branded a felon (domestic abuser, child rapist, whatever) if one dares execute some discipline on the young charges in his life. Effective removal of the governmental "hood ornament" from my "tailpipe" would go a long, long way toward much of this garbage.

[DBW]

Why is anyone shocked that kids are willing to kill their parents these days? Parents routinely kill their children while still in the womb.

[AJMD429]

He could see how mad I was and he thought a minute and said " bring me a note from your mom and you can have the shells ". So I walked the mile home, got my note, returned to the store and he sold me the .22 ammo. He is gone now and enough time has passed that I don't think BATF will say too much. I did not understand until much later that the Government was trying to protect me from myself.

Most likely, the alphabet-goons will find any living relatives and exterminate them. It's easier than actually dealing with dangerous criminals, and the media would love the footage.

We had one TV channel. The only time we got to watch it was Saturday mornings. Cartoons started at 7 am. You know real cartoons, Tom and Jerry, The Road Runner and Wiley Coyote, Elmer Fudd, and Foghorn Leghorn the Rooster. What ever happened to cartoons ?

They were too VIOLENT - now kids watch the same cartoons, but the only thing killed is 'robots' - somehow that makes it ok. You can see the positive results in our schools and violent crime data.

[Pete44ru]

It started with fast-food, then all other sorts of speeded-up things & events, until younger folk got hooked on a constant adrenaline high and had to always seek out "more" - no matter than at the same time the best/easiest adrenaline supply was located where they were pretty much isolated from the rest of the family.

Co-incidentally, some folk that grew up resentful of their parent's discipline started to agitate against any corporal discipline at all - I think they're call intellectuals - that led to what we see today.

I don't believe I'll live to see it, but I also believe this country as we knew it will soon be no more (sad to say) - just as the Roman Empire and British Empires once also fell.

.

[C. Cash]

The good news is, there are some "grass roots" orgs poping up everywhere...people wanting to reclaim what the promise of America once was. Keep on fighting fellas and rattle the sabers as loud as possible. Also keep em sharp just in case that is not enough.

[JohndeFresno]

I'll tell you what's missing: Jesus of Nazareth. Replaced by human nature, the antithesis of Godliness.

In the final analysis - that's it. All of it.

[C. Cash]

I'll tell you what's missing: Jesus of Nazareth. Replaced by human nature, the antithesis of Godliness.

In the final analysis - that's it. All of it.

+2.

[rjohns94]

+3 - well stated.

[Ysabel Kid]

+4

Not to diminish physical or sexual abuse, which are certainly horrible and life-altering, but to me one of the worst forms of child abuse is these nit-wit parents who don't set boundries and rules for their children, and refuse to punish them. One of the basic points of parenting in all societies is to domesicate children, who are essentially smart wild animals when brought into this world. We teach them religion, morals, character, etc. so they can become useful, productive and caring members of a civilized society. Not teaching them these things is criminal - because eventually almost all of these kids end up in the real world which doesn't give a rat's rear end about their feelings, but only their actions and performance.

I was raised in a loving household that included heathly and certain doses of discipline. I am raising my children the exact same way. I will not contribute to the decay of our society by unleashing spoiled rotten selfish brats into the world. Heck, since my kids will be stuck carrying the weight of scores of others, they had better be prepared...