Violence in schools and elsewhere

The shootings today in Connecticut, while an unspeakable tragedy, should not be unexpected when one considers how many guns, especially assault weapons, are in the hands of private citizens many of whom are mentally unstable and deranged.  There is no need for such weapons to be in the hands of private citizens in the first place.

The underlying cause of today's problems however is a more difficult one to address.  We live in a violent culture with violent movies and TV program and the young and unstable like to imitate and unfortunately where is often a lack of parenting.  Either one or both parents are missing from homes to help guide their children and even then some of them may have violent criminal backgrounds and are unqualified to be even be parents as they are going to be unable to give the proper guidance for difficult times and problems. They may even encourage violent actions to solve problems.

I totally encourage a total ban on assault weapons in the hands of private citizens but we also need better education and mental health programs to ward off future massacres such as the one today.