I subscribe to Marilyn Manson's interpretation of the "Culture of Fear." Here in the United States, our social mores have ridiculously high standards, which boils down to roughly "if you and your family aren't attractive or don't make six figures, then you're abnormal." We have cultivated a society that believes those who do not meet those standards (in this case, the Adam Lanza kid) deserve to be unloved, ignored, and even downright ridiculed (I of course speak of before the fact).
Legislation that bans assault and concealed weapons may have reduced the body count, true, but it's not exactly a *SOLUTION* insomuch as the word "treatment" for a disease isn't a "cure" (And who's to say he couldn't have accomplished the same feat with mustard gas, when the ingredients for it were underneath the kitchen sink?) Such a ban would not make the gang problems in South Central LA disappear because the people who live there also live under the same "Culture of Fear." In the schools the problem goes both ways; the kids realise they don't have much to look forward to when they either graduate or (unfortunately much too often) drop out, and the schools' faculties know they're basically wasting their time with that "climate of fear."
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