Total Freak-Out

Why another university shooting? I just do not understand a mentality that walks into a lecture hall and begins unloading bullets on a bunch of innocent, unarmed students. After the Virginia Tech shootings, I saw a guy on TV who invented bullet-proof backpacks. At first I was like, what a wacko. But then he explained. He had kids in school and feared for their life. Feared for their life. His school kids.

I could use five of those bullet proof backpacks.

The thought that my sweet, innocent girls could get shot and killed at school is terrifying. Or anyone's kids. Remember the slaughter at the Amish school? This kind of terrorism has to stop.

What is the sickness that drives people to do something like this? Is it the violent movies like "Saw" or video games like Halo that just insulate people against the suffering deaths of other people? Obviously, the kids in the picture here think it's real damn funny to slaughter people. I can't remember who said this, but I learned it in a college history class: you can gauge the health of a society by their art. Whenever a society has crumbled morally and politically and financially, it was first reflected in their art. Whoever it was cited the Roman Empire as an example. And I do believe that art is a reflection of societies' ills (just as it can be a reflection of societies' achievements), which makes us a pretty depraved society.

Why is no one screaming about these slaughter movies marketed to kids from middle schoolers to young adults? My girls keeps talking about how they want to see the movie where if you miss your cell phone call, you're dead. Hellow, they are only 12 and 10! And yet the marketers have found a way to appeal to these young kids. Yeah, indoctrinate them early, and you'll have a customer for life, said Ray Croc with his soon-to-be McDonalds empire. I don't mind so much with hamburgers (they kill much slower), but now it is MY girls and their peers being targeted by those sickos in Hollywood and you know what? I truly fear for their future safety. I know they would never turn a gun on anyone, but who knows what potential wacko is brewing in their midst?

In the violent, unstable world we live in, the only true thing we have to offer our children is faith. We can't predict what future events may strike us, but faith gives us the strength to continue on in spite of the fear, in spite of the violence around us and, God forbid, in spite of it spilling over into our lives. All we can really do, I guess, is pray.

Still, it makes me really mad.