In light of yet another horrific event in America I sense a strange paradox. While hearts are crushed with the most senseless, evil and tragic shootings of this week I've heard in my life time, with the taking of so many innocent lives, especially children, at the same time I worry that we fail to see how much our country loves violence.

Oh we would never admit. And many will say there is no correlation between our love for violence and actual violence. Yet how can we deny when it comes to the consumption of 'entertainment' in America - violence (along with sex) is either near the top or at the top. It would be hard to deny as a country we seem to gravitate toward violent movies. While violent movies initially may have been rather tame such as in gangster movies of the late 20s, we'd have to confess violence in movies of today are more violent than ever before. If we add slasher movies to the violent genre we quickly see America consumers become like sharks who sense blood in the water who react with a desire to consume.

One concern I believe we must admit is with alarm is the massive amount of violent videos which 'entertain' impressible young minds. While I would agree not every young person will act out what they play in extreme violent video games we should be concerned that we are forming in the minds of a young generation that life is not valued. How can a young person play violent video games hours on end where they have the power to maim or kill people at will and yet it not impact how they view others?

When there is no respect for life then there is no value for life. With the tragic news of this week where everyone seem to be asking 'how could this happen?' - no one seems to be addressing the elephant in the room - as a nation we are in love with violence because our hearts don't respect or value life. And unless that concept changes in the hearts of the American consumer of entertainment I suspect more difficult days lie ahead for our country.

I think your view of young minds being impressionable kinda comes down to core values instilled by the parents of said child. Violence is out there, yes, but if your mind never comes to a breaking point, then I highly doubt you've got anything to worry about. And how many people, when they do snap, pick up a gun and go buck wild on innocent people? It's a small percentage. Unfortunately, we live in an instant society where news and media are spread at that very moment making it seem as if there is a pandemic going on.

The right to bear arms also has nothing to do with anything. They can try to curtail gun ownership but honestly that's not going to work. It's about getting the guns out of the wrong hands and seeing as that this country can hardly put a dent in drug trafficking, I highly doubt they will be able to stop arms dealing. Maybe along with the background checks that are part of the waiting process of purchasing a gun, they should also do a mental stability test but even so, there are so many ways to get around that--albeit, illegal gun purchases or having someone you know get that gun for you. Look at the guns used yesterday. They were purchased by the mother!

Also, as far as violence in video games and movies....sure. Yeah, you could say that that may give some kid a view of life having no intrinsic value but lets say they join the armed forces and become a perfect killing machine. Is that such a bad thing when it comes to the enemies of our country? I think not. Maybe they love life and they understand there is a cycle to life because their parents had them watch The Lion King, lol. I've stated this before....I listen to rap music. Does it influence me to go out and gangbang? No. I have core values instilled in me that my parents passed on to me through their guidance and love. I don't know how people go wrong but apparently the ones that do have issues that compound each other.

That's all I can really think of for now.