Chet, No, I'm not trying to point at any one thing. It is easy to blame the obvious. However in the 1950's & 60's handguns were avabile by mail. If you could send in a check you could get the gun. I also remember seeing barrels (wood type) full of surplus rifles, with a price tag of $10-15 your choice. So I would say that firearms were much more accessable then than now. Some schools even had shooting clubs. Jr.NRA marksmenship, came under the athletic dpt. However, I don't remember hearing about anyone taking a target rifle and shooing their kinfolks. I may have happend, but I don't remember hearing about it.

Of course that was then, this is now. It is too complext a problem to point to anyone thing and say that is the cause of all our problems. Avaiblity of firearms as a contrubiting factor? Perhaps, but firearms are way less avaible now than ever before in history. (for the USA anyway.)

In MHO, (my humble opinion), there are many factors pressing down on us. Here are some factors to consider:

1. TV Violance is down, there are guide lines for that now.

2. Divorce rate is way up, The family structure is falling apart at the seams. (Here in Ca. it takes two incomes to afford a stupid apartment.)

3. At the very bottom end, well I hate to say it, but I have seen it with my own eyes, welfair pays for babies out of wedlock. So sometimes you have 13 year old girls having babies so they can get more money. (I hope I don't get flamed for this paragraph, but I lived near Chicago, and you would see reports on TV of this happing. A friend of mine used to deliver the surplus food, and told me stories that would send shivers down your spine.) I only bring this up, to show that this generates disfunctional familes.

4. Then there is the avaiblity of Drugs, and the huge profets from there sales. So you have gangs battling over "turff'

5. The schools have turned to crap. The teachers can't teach, because their hands are tied by impossable regulations.

6. You can't hire kids to work any more. (I used to work in a gas station at the age of 9-14, part time, sometimes only for a day job to get some money for a show.)

7. Perhaps we just have too much stuff. Some folks find it strange that I'm willing to take three to five years to learn to play an accordion. The concept of working today and getting the reward much later, is being lost on some people.

8. Guns are NOT as avaible as in the past. (Yes I said that but I wanted it on this list.)

Well, thats a short list of what I think are some of the causes of our shooting problems. I think this leads to other problems too, but this is a gun thread.

So I don't think you could solve the probem with any of the above, I think they all have to be addressed, somehow.

Oh dear, I have rambled on...again.

Happy Monday.

Fadac