The problem isn't guns. It's immorality.

[baldeagle]

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/ ... abeeb?pg=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This story will tear your heart out, both because these children's deaths are being ignored and because you'll know the reason why.

[mamabearCali]

Sad on so many levels. Heaven help us all.

[cheezit]

sorry if i missed something. when involved in gangs which are a well knowen part of the drug and major crime problems there and in most metro area's you get what you get. that life will lead to either a quick death or a life in jail. what bothers me is the spill over that takes the lifes of the good upstanding people in the comunities

bad choices are just that, some will live threw them some wont.
ill i see here is youth killing each other over stuipd stuff costing my more of my tax dollars.

[baldeagle]

sorry if i missed something. when involved in gangs which are a well knowen part of the drug and major crime problems there and in most metro area's you get what you get. that life will lead to either a quick death or a life in jail. what bothers me is the spill over that takes the lifes of the good upstanding people in the comunities

Yeah, you missed something. Kids get involved in gangs because they don't have fathers that steer them in the right direction. Did you read the whole article? Including the part about the elephants?

[mamabearCali]

Boys need their fathers. It is just that simple.

[Jasonw560]

sorry if i missed something. when involved in gangs which are a well knowen part of the drug and major crime problems there and in most metro area's you get what you get. that life will lead to either a quick death or a life in jail. what bothers me is the spill over that takes the lifes of the good upstanding people in the comunities

bad choices are just that, some will live threw them some wont.
ill i see here is youth killing each other over stuipd stuff costing my more of my tax dollars.

The point of the article is fatherlessness is the main problem of the violence.

[Andrew]

So, more than 4,000 young black men were murdered last year. What is the President's plan of action? If we can save just one life aren't we compelled to act?

[cheezit]

growing up and being in high school in los angles in the 90's. we had plenty of gangs, crips,bloods, hat street, hoover, 18th st, rolling 60's and Asian bad boys just to name a few. my experence with the gang culture was a little different. it was a mix of kids. some had nothing, some had to much and some had both parents at home. people from all walks of life get involved, most for a desire to belong to something, something that wold give them a name, something that would lead to easy money. my last year in high school there were 5 drive shooting on my high school campus.
the real question is were are their fathers now... they are in jail or dead in most case, yes some just left too. many of the the one still hanging around are busy on their Obama phone, collecting welfair while living in a bottle insted of getting a job, or just tring to find a new husttle
you dont here about the mexican's or the whites or the asians because they dont fit the agenda either.
plenty of people make it threw life with out major issues with one or no parent at all around, simply by making better life decisions.

and for the record i do feel bad about the killing of elephants

[The Annoyed Man]

plenty of people make it threw life with out major issues with one or no parent at all around, simply by making better life decisions.

and for the record i do feel bad about the killing of elephants

With all due respect, you're still missing the point at little bit. It is an indisputable fact that the sons of families that have no father in the home are at much higher risk. You are correct in that it is also true that they don't have to wind up as some kind of tragic statistic, and that they can alter the arc of their lives by making good decisions. However, they are far more likely to learn how to make those good decisions in a stable household with a resident father. Without those fathers, they already have a strike against them, and their odds of success go down directly because of that disadvantage. I would go so far as to say that this is a bigger factor than their particular ethnic or economic strata.

Like you, I am also from southern California, and I coached a season of high school football in 2004. The school was Blair High School in Pasadena, and the team was almost entirely black kids, with a couple of hispanics, and one white kid. Those ratios repeated in the general student body. My son was one of maybe 8 or 10 white kids in the school. Those football players who were doing the best in school and were the easiest to work with as a coach were those from stable families with a resident father. Those kids who were struggling the hardest in school, and were the hardest to coach.....and also got in the most trouble away from school.....were the those from households without a father. The very worst troubled young man was a kid who I kind of took under my wing. He lived in a group home because his mother was a crack whore and his father was absent. He was at the same time the toughest AND the most vulnerable kid on the team. He desperately wanted an older man in his life who was a stable person, and for a while, it was my privilege to be that person. I bought him his first suit to go job hunting with. It is inappropriate for the state to be that "person" in a young man's life. In fact, the state is categorically unable to be that influence in a young man's life. But if not a father, then whom?

[packa45]

Ok I went to one of the "middle of the road" schools here in Austin... Half of the students came from what seem to be nice homes both parents around, never without food, car for 16th birthday yada yada. Others came from "the other side" mom or dad never around for this reason or that...gang violence in their neighborhood at the school...
Some perfectly stable homes were shattered during my high school years because this all American boy or girl who had plenty of friends and was one of the "cool" kids wanted to be "cooler" to more people so they befriended gang bangers started doing drugs selling drugs,skipping school etc. Some people want more attention and when they see that acting out gives them that notoriety... They want more and more and more...

As for me... I was a small circle of friends guy... 8-10 people I just saw the gangs as stupid... Hearing so and so got busted for drugs... So and so got stabbed... Then the shocker hit me... On my way home from school...robbed at gunpoint by a guy from the same school... 380 beretta stuck right between my eyebrows at the bus stop (metro not school)... Lucky for me the gun misfired or wasn't loaded. Because after he took my watch wallet and everything I had except my books in my backpack I heard the sound "click" that's when I realized gangs don't just affect gang members, gang violence effects people, neighborhoods, cities, states. I hit him with my fist and knocked the gun from his hands and ran as fast as i could(he was as shocked as i was that it didn't fire)That young adult never was arrested... He was killed 2 days later running across a street after an attempted robbery.

He came from the same "neighborhood" as me... Stable home good grades... Until he started "acting a fool"

When people say these (poor blacks,poor hispanics, kids with a single parent) are the only people effected by gangs. It makes me sick stable families have children, mothers fathers killed robbed beaten etc during gang related activity...I will not go as far as to say those in gangs are there because of a moral deficiency... Some are some aren't.

What was this going on about? ... Every person makes choices in life... Those choices make up who we are...that will never change... Unless the person looks into who they really are and wants to change.

Community mentor programs rely on mentors... If a mentor doesn't step forward for a particular child the child will get that mentoring somewhere else(good or bad)

[baldeagle]

What was this going on about? ... Every person makes choices in life... Those choices make up who we are...that will never change... Unless the person looks into who they really are and wants to change.

While all this is true, it still ignores the thrust of the argument. As TAM points out, when fathers are missing, society suffers. That's a fact. We can find thousands of anecdotes to "refute" that fact, but there are millions of lives being destroyed that prove it's true.

Fatherless homes are an invention of our liberal government policies. When you teach, verbally, by example and with laws, that the government will take care of you, some people will listen and believe it. And the lives they live will impact a greater circle than just their immediate family. When the government says to a pregnant woman, don't worry about the father, we'll take care of you, they are encouraging fatherless "homes". And those homes will destroy (and are destroying) the country more assuredly than any war. They have decimated the black family.

That's why welfare is wrong, why abortion is wrong, why sex education in schools is wrong, why affirmative action is wrong, why so many government programs are wrong. Not because they aren't well intentioned. They may be. But the outcomes of those programs destroy society. If anyone can look around them and not see that America is being destroyed from within, that person is either blind or willfully ignorant.

[cheezit]

What was this going on about? ... Every person makes choices in life... Those choices make up who we are...that will never change... Unless the person looks into who they really are and wants to change.

While all this is true, it still ignores the thrust of the argument. As TAM points out, when fathers are missing, society suffers. That's a fact. We can find thousands of anecdotes to "refute" that fact, but there are millions of lives being destroyed that prove it's true.

Fatherless homes are an invention of our liberal government policies. When you teach, verbally, by example and with laws, that the government will take care of you, some people will listen and believe it. And the lives they live will impact a greater circle than just their immediate family. When the government says to a pregnant woman, don't worry about the father, we'll take care of you, they are encouraging fatherless "homes". And those homes will destroy (and are destroying) the country more assuredly than any war. They have decimated the black family.

That's why welfare is wrong, why abortion is wrong, why sex education in schools is wrong, why affirmative action is wrong, why so many government programs are wrong. Not because they aren't well intentioned. They may be. But the outcomes of those programs destroy society. If anyone can look around them and not see that America is being destroyed from within, that person is either blind or willfully ignorant.

the problems were there prior to the things you blame for the cause. welfare started in the 30's under roosevelt, but the program we know today was started in the 60's. abortition 1/22/1973, affirmative action under jfk 6/19/1963.
jesse james of the "james gang" was 19 when he started, now that may be a bad example not really a gang in now moder times. the 40 theifs around 1820(ish). in1850 new york saw more then 200 gang fights most were by youth. then look at chicago in the 20's, from there just look at las vegas. the list goes on.

[baldeagle]

Apples and oranges. You will always have bad people and bad parents. But the government changed the equation in the '60s and now we're reaping the whirlwind. Instead of bad people and bad parents we have entire families and generations of families that are bad. The problems we have now were created by government and are more endemic and will be much, much harder to solve.

[S_3]

It was a foreseeable consequence of paying women to have children out of wedlock instead of expecting parents to support their children even if they weren't married to the other parent.

[bagman45]

When I was a young man, I went to work for a great company in TX. It was sold to a great company in Detroit, so I was sent there to do good work. One of my co-workers was a man much older, and wiser than me (OK, he was about the age I am now, but I was a kid), who was hired by my company, as we needed a BUNCH of people to help our new owner. He had spent most of his career in the education systems around Detroit and its suburbs, so had seen first hand what goes on in such places. He was a great, interesting guy, and we became close friends. It didnt' hurt that we both liked guns and being outdoors shooting....

As you know, there's PLENTY of violent crime in Detroit. Always has been, and those days were no different. So, that crime was a constant source of discussion amongst those of us who had been relocated there, and our new friends (the "Native Michiganders"). During one of those discussions, at lunch, away from the office, my wise friend said, and I quote; "yeah, it's a mess, and there's really nothing the government, you, or me, or anyone can do - until it gets bad enought that people come to the harsh realization that we need to take all of the inner city kids away from their families for a few generations, so that they can see how productive, honest people live. But I don't expect any politician to ever have the ba^#s to even start the conversation". WOW. Most direct, honest, workable solution I have ever heard. Before, or since.

So yes, I agree that our society, its ethics an morality are to blame. The biggest problem is our politicans are PROMOTING and REWARDING the demise (with OUR money). Something's gotta give....