It Always Befuckles My Ass...

...when things like the slaughter at Virginia Tech surprises us. It's almost common place now, in one way or another.

Any school campus is an easy target, but particularly colleges. Open air, open dorms and the like. I love the bullshit they pass on that they had an emergency action plan. What the fuck good is that when the shooter has already commenced with his rampage?

The thing I'm convinced of is that we have some serious mental health issues in this country that we are failing to address. Kids, and yes, I mean kids in college, aren't supposed to go blowing the hell out of one another. It's supposed to be a time of investigation, learning, self-improvement and enlightenment. I'm pretty sure Aquinas didn't wield his quill in an effort to puncture the hearts of his classmates.

This type of thing alarms me not only as a parent, because I have two college-aged children, but as a human being. What the hell has happened to our society? My guess is parenting. We suck at it, and if parents suck at it, then their progeny will suck at being people. And then they do shit like this, because their parents never gave them a hug or showed any attention to them, or they put vinegar in their oatmeal or for the most part conveyed the fact that it would really be easier if the kid just let the parent live their life and somehow develop skills at the age of ten to take care of themselves.

Am I surprised by this? Not at all. Will it happen again? Yeppers. They speculate that the shooter was pretty good with small arms, but it doesn't take much to fire a 9mm into a room full of people. That's chickenshit in my book, but his backup was a .22 caliber. Puzzled by that one as well. Neither takes much as far as marksmanship. Point and shoot. Something will get in your way.

We send our kids off to get educated, have a good time, drink some beer, wear some togas and come home with a diploma before they go off to enter the "adult world". Problem is they are still children. The adult brain doesn't mature until it's 25, so we are sorely lacking in this regard.

Ah well, who gives a shit. Nothing will change. Life goes on. People die. It's the way the world stays in balance. We can't all live for a long time. It would get crowded. Some people have to give up the ghost to keep the balance.