Better to be thought a f*****g moron....

As a society, we would be well advised to explore all aspects of youth violence, and not tunnel-vison on a single component (guns) to the exclusion of all else.

In almost all of the recent cases of murderous youth violence, the teens were being treated with antidepressant medications. It may have been 100%. It's hard to be sure because juvenile records are sealed.

The practice of medicating "depressed" teens with powerful mind altering chemicals has skyrocketed in the last 10 years. It's a gold mine for the drug companies and the Psychological Services Industry, and correlates well with the increase in youth violence. It's a hard to prove correlation, and an admittedly unscientific one. But then, the drug companies did not conduct scientific testing on the effects of their popular pills on youthful patients, and when presented with evidence of increased violence (among adults and youth) they buried the information to protect their profits. In fact, the drug companies don't fully understand how the chemicals they make produce desired effects, and are 100% CLUELESS about any long term impact on a still developing adolescent brain.

In some cases, these drugs do produce positive results. But if you or someone you love is taking these meds, or forcing their minor children to take them, please be aware that you and your doctor may not have all the data required to reach an informed decision.

http://fightforkids.com/ has helpful information on this topic.

DeLay's quote above is extreme. Common sense would urge us to investigate why teen depression is increasing. We're into the 3rd or 4th generation of offspring who have zero expreience with extended family, and were shipped off to day care while still in diapers. It would be moronic to assume that institutionalized parenting is as good as care from the family.

It's even more (Michael)moronic and extreme to assume that gun control will have any effect on teen violence. In fact, it's just plain illogical. Many of the weapons used in these crimes were already illegal, making more weapons illegal is not likely to stop the violence.

Depressed kids who grew up on farms and handled guns as a matter of course in the years prior to 1960 did not, demonstrably, go shoot up their schools or neighborhoods.

Demonstrably, those kids -- if they happened to be the children of single parents, even -- had more opportunity to use their imaginations and interact with their peers in age-appropriate UNCONTROLLED environments than do children in today's safety-first, no-fun world.

I submit that we have created something very similar to the culture of Japan, wherein teen and adolescent suicides are almost a normal response to things like bad grades or not getting into the desired university. In the 70s and 80s it became all the rage to emulate the Japanese system of 'quality education' -- without exploring the accompanying stress levels. In the 90s it became all the rage to push self-esteem and give kids reasons to feel empowered -- even when they were in fact being crippled by a system that didn't expect them to be able to meet 'traditional' standards aka timeworn outmoded old paradigms.

Now it's all the rage to give kids everything that might help them get a better education, as long as they can use it at home and in isolation. Is it any wonder kids are more stressed and depressed?

The answer is to teach kids about guns and about bicycles, about biting dogs and rabies shots, about fishing and fisticuffs and skateboard helmets, and give them some time to be KIDS. Not little athletes or scholars or concert performers, not time micromanaged little copies of their parents, and not wetware for exploitation by gamers. K I D S.

Of course, that's highly politically incorrect these very structured days.