Comtibuting

Writer

The past year of

schoolhouse bloodshed has loosed a torrent of ink in the

debate about what has gone wrong with America.

Theories abound. We pick

and choose among them: The Internet. God having been

"thrown out of the schools." The entertainment

industry. The media.

Failure of educators.

Failure of parents. Failure of society.

Here's my take, and a word

of hope.

I believe that what we are

seeing in these once-unthinkable events is the result of

a desensitization process driven by so-called free speech

advocates and carried out by the entertainment industry

and the media.

Both have pushed their

share of envelopes in the name of free speech and

expression, so that what we watch from our dinner tables

rivals X-rated films. Words and pictures deliver the

evening news in the most graphic detail possible, from a

cigar in the Oval Office to the rent bodies of children

in Kosovo. No effort to shock is spared, no obscenity

deemed too offensive, until finally we are beyond being

disturbed by what we read or see.

There's a reason human

psyches flinch at depravity. The sight or sound of other

human beings being hurt, especially the young and the

helpless, evokes in normal people the primitive

fight/flight response. The intent is protection of self

or of the helpless among us.

For some, however, that

jolt of adrenalin brings pleasure, and to achieve another

"hit," they seek more and more stimulation.

Some may find it in bungee jumping, others in porn

flicks. And for still others, in video games that make

the destruction of human life a victory.

And when these no longer

thrill, we ratchet up to whatever does, whether sexual

abuse, blowing up buildings, murder, or the ultimate

thrill, self-destruction.

I don't intend to rant and

rave about how different things were In My Day. Like the

car ad used to say, "This is not your father's

Oldsmobile."

Things are different and

will never go back to the way they were In My Day. Advice

to myself: Deal with it.

But there is hope. There

are solutions.

One is to make it a given

that parents or legal guardians are responsible for

whatever mischief their children commit. I can't believe

this is not already the case.

How can it be that I am

legally responsible if my dog bites your child,

especially in your yard, but not if my son demolishes

your mailbox? Why on earth would a parent NOT be held

criminally liable if his child aims a gun at another

child and pulls the trigger?

When a housing authority

- was it Chicago's? - adopted a zero-tolerance

policy concerning drugs found on the premises, whole

families were evicted because one member had a roach in

his pocket. Incidents of drug offenses plummeted once it

dawned on parents that they were going to take the heat

for their kids' misbehavior.

As for gun control, I agree

with those who suggest that "responsible gun

ownership" would be a more palatable term. If that's

what it takes to get the NRA's cooperation on common

sense legislation, fine, coat it with sugar candy, but do

whatever it takes before more innocents die.

People who like to label

people call me a liberal, and in many ways I am. I cannot

conceive, for example, of why anyone would object to the

registration of a deadly weapon, yet think nothing of the

fact that our cars have to be registered.

Or why anyone believes his

freedom of expression would be jeopardized by

restrictions on what can be shown on movie, TV, and home

computer screens, yet accept as fair restrictions on the

speed he can drive or laws requiring that one lane of

traffic yield to another.

To be free, we sometimes

have to give up freedom. When the well-being of society

is at risk because of the actions of any member of it,

government, acting on behalf of the people, must restrict

those actions, whether the publication of recipes for

bombs or the imposition of speed limits in a school zone.

Why do I think there's

hope? Last month, 20/20 had a stunning piece about how

Fiji changed from a society in which, a century ago,

murder was the leading cause of death among all ages to a

society with one of the lowest murder rates in the world.

There are a lot of factors

involved, human nature being so complex. Among them: a

commitment to make childhood such a happy, protected time

that kids are not in a hurry to grow up; absence of the

stimuli of television and movies (like those in which

American children see thousands of violent deaths before

they get out of grade school); and the possession of

firearms is absolutely prohibited.

The hopeful element is how

all this came about. The researcher featured in the 20/20

story believes that the Fijians simply became fed up with

the violence among them and willed it to end. There is a

saturation point a society can reach, he says, and

decides that enough is enough. He says it has happened in

other cultures as well as in Fiji, and it can happen in

America.

It seems a long shot, but I

am hopeful for this reason: I have lived through times

when we thought it was perfectly all right for public

places to be divided between "white" and

"colored," when people accepted limitations

simply because of race.

But no longer.

I remember well when people

smoked everywhere and without apology, when city council

meetings, church board meetings, airplanes, buses, even

hospital rooms were gray with stinging smoke, and it

never occurred to anyone that that would ever change.

But no longer.

Sometimes our elected

officials are slow to get our drift, but I do believe

that when we as a people finally decide enough is enough,

and are determined that the desensitization of children

will stop, that easy access to weapons will end, that the

community will hold parents responsible for their

children's actions, we will secure the most precious

freedom of all: freedom from fear.

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