It’s fantastic to see that there are people on earth who actually share my views on the violent idiots behind attacks nowadays, and that i’m not alone =]

The tenuous but instant jump to a terrorism analogy by a (presumably) grown adult is far more scary to me than any kid with a plastic knuckle-duster.

http://www.crunchgear.com/2007/04/18/why-video-games-dont-cause-violence/

It’s demeaning and wrong-headed.

As a nearly new father, of two years, I plan on raising my son the same way you wrote you’re planning on raising you son. However, I’m not really worried about how I raise my son, nor am I worried about how you raise yours. Rather, I’m worried about how that guy over there raises his son.

Actually, I’m worried about how he doesn’t raise his son. I’m very concerned that he won’t raise his son to realize that, “punching people in the face is bad .”

I realize that banning things isn’t going to be the answer to everything, but I’ll take all the help I can to keep my kid safe. As I was being raised, the bounds of acceptable behavior were made very clear to me and I never came close to crossing them. I had my share of school-yard fights in middle school and testoterone clashes with other male teenagers in my high school years, but me and my adversaries never came anywhere near killing each other.

Nevermind, I’m getting the urge to drone on. Medicated kids and absentee parents make this a different world, John. All my efforts and all your efforts can come to an end in the blink of an eye. That shit terrifies me.

Now, it’s stuff like this – akin to the old “razorblades in the apples” thing that happens every year at halloween – that makes parents react irrationally to things that are dangerous. Violence in games? Ban it. Cellphone porn for kids? Ban it. Predators on the streets of Anytown? Keep the kids inside.

My argument isn’t that we shouldn’t be upset that bad things exist – we should. They debase us and show us how close to animals we really are. But this weapon is just like any other. It is impossible to find and ban them all so instead of showing us how cool these things are by busting up fruit why not educate kids that punching people in the face is bad.

I was raised in Columbus, Ohio. It wasn’t rural, but I had a nice yard and my dad let me futz around the chemistry sets, bombs (i could never pack them) and eventually guns. I will work with my son the same way – not to make him violent but to show him what these things are and do. We probably won’t go plinking in Brooklyn, but I’ll do my best to teach him.

Re: terrorists. You’re extending my logic where it doesn’t belong. Terrorism is an entirely different animal, carried about by kids not much older than the kids in the video above but political and financial in nature. Like burglary and muggings, terrorism has an injury angle and a financial gain angle. I’ve always posited that terrorist organizations are more like gangs rather than the religious nutjobs we make them out the be. They wrap themselves in religion to gain followers and respect but they are all gangsters and, like all gangsters, learn best when their own die. They want territory and money, not salvation.

School shootings and the like don’t have a political side. They are caused by madness, something that is hard to control and legislate. Working with kids to understand where those fault lines lie is a parent’s prerogative and a teacher’s duty. I’m all for gun control, but until we have a ban on all guns, I am disgusted by these ham-handed attempts to “ban” weapons that any intelligent person could make in their back yard in the interest of showing that “Fox 5 cares.”

You’ve been a good and constant commentor, dwalk, and I trust that we can argue this intelligently.