Teen shooting in Jeanette getting very little press (crime, money)

[szug-bot]

Originally Posted by safak

Its fear mongering, everyone is scared. i used to drive my bike from shadyside boys club to lawrenceville one with my cousins when i was ~10.

Now if i let my 10 year old walk alone further than 2 houses away im negligent in the eyes of the neighborhood.

Or, you might get a visit from the po-po, and CYS. Preposterous, is it?

Investigation into Md.

The social services people threatened to take their kids away unless the father would sign a 'parenting plan' of theirs. (Sorry if this was covered in another thread)

[gg]

Originally Posted by safak

Its fear mongering, everyone is scared. i used to drive my bike from shadyside boys club to lawrenceville one with my cousins when i was ~10.

Now if i let my 10 year old walk alone further than 2 houses away im negligent in the eyes of the neighborhood.

Fear mongering sells to make money for networks. The end result is people are afraid of pretty much everything. It sure was nice in the 70's and 80's before the Internet boom and the 24 hour news mess.

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by gg

Statistically, I think we are living in some of the safest times in the past 50 years, but everyone thinks we all are living in the middle of Bagdad after Hussein was murdered.

Where I'm at right now everyone has at the very least, homes with razor wire or electric fence with an ADT system promising an armed response & if your a bit more affluent a private security guard; makes safety complaints about pittsburgh pretty funny from here.

[SammyKhalifa]

Originally Posted by gg

Fear mongering sells to make money for networks. The end result is people are afraid of pretty much everything. It sure was nice in the 70's and 80's before the Internet boom and the 24 hour news mess.

Well that's just not really true.

I remember growing up in the 80s in fear of some mysterious White Van that was going to come steal all of the kids.

But yeah, it's pretty safe. Probably no safer or no more dangerous than it's ever been, really.

[UKyank]

Originally Posted by SammyKhalifa

Well that's just not really true.
I remember growing up in the 80s in fear of some mysterious White Van that was going to come steal all of the kids.
But yeah, it's pretty safe. Probably no safer or no more dangerous than it's ever been, really.

But there was McGruff the crime dog back then to thwart such threats

[wpipkins2]

Originally Posted by SammyKhalifa

Well that's just not really true.

I remember growing up in the 80s in fear of some mysterious White Van that was going to come steal all of the kids.

But yeah, it's pretty safe. Probably no safer or no more dangerous than it's ever been, really.

I was terrified of white vans. White vans were worst than Jason in the 1980s.

[szug-bot]

Originally Posted by gg

Fear mongering sells to make money for networks. The end result is people are afraid of pretty much everything. It sure was nice in the 70's and 80's before the Internet boom and the 24 hour news mess.

Well, you'd be surprised. I'm not sure how old you are...but let's see the "fear mongering" that existed before the internet:

-killer bees would work their way into the United States and swarm and kill little kids, especially if you are wearing red
-Nostradamus predicted an epic battle between an eagle (the United States?) and a bear (the USSR?) - note, the "seer" didn't say anything about the nuclear explosions in Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
-(some of you should love this one) the dangers of marijuana use
-the evil of luciferian-inspired heavy metal music and how it compels adolescents to kill....

So really, nothing has changed much! People have always been overly negative and haven't trusted in diplomacy and science to solve problems.

[szug-bot]

Originally Posted by SammyKhalifa

Well that's just not really true.

I remember growing up in the 80s in fear of some mysterious White Van that was going to come steal all of the kids.

I remember that!!! "The man in the white van"! That made me very scared walking after dark.

[szug-bot]

Originally Posted by UKyank

Where I'm at right now everyone has at the very least, homes with razor wire or electric fence with an ADT system promising an armed response & if your a bit more affluent a private security guard; makes safety complaints about pittsburgh pretty funny from here.

Still, if I ever buy a house, I WILL probably go overboard for protection. I'm sorry, but home invasions are NOT that uncommon. There were at least two in the last 2 weeks in the metro area (Arlington, and South Side).

[charisb]

Originally Posted by szug-bot

Do you know of Sean Sellers? To his dying day, Sellers believed it was the real presence of evil that had him do what he did. He was never found to be insane, and if you heard him speak, seemed pretty reasonable - neither overly intelligent, nor someone who seemed lowly educated. Just a normal middle class white protestant.

I think there ARE cases where a killer had NO childhood trauma. There might be some merit to the argument that society's constant images of violence and aggression do shape someone's conscious.

The challenge is that people don't remember their early childhood. So your caregiver could have left you alone in a crib all day every day for years and you wouldn't remember it. You would, however, grow up with attachment issues and a lack of empathy because in your early childhood you learned that people did not care about you. We don't usually know this information about people but this kind of thing is pretty common.I don't think a person with this experience would appear 'mentally ill' but they may have issues with emotion regulation and empathy.
Of course I don't believe in 'evil' or the devil. I also think of horses, not zebras, when I hear hoofbeats--it seems much more likely that a young man who killed his parents had an early childhood experience that negatively impacted their brain development than it is that he was 'possessed by evil'.
if media violence had that much impact we would have a whole lot more people committing violent crimes.