When will it end?

Will sanity ever prevail again? Has mass murder become so commonplace in this country that it now is acceptable just so long as it happens somewhere else? But just where is "somewhere else" today?
Is the "me" way of thinking responsible? It certainly plays a role. Self esteem based on nothing more than idle praise has been pounded into people for decades. TV commercials tell them they deserve this and deserve that until they believe it is true. Then something happens and suddenly the perfect world they feel they are entitled to isn't quite so perfect any longer.
The smart and the strong pick up the pieces and start to rebuild. The weak pick up a gun, go to the place or places they feel destroyed their happiness and open fire at random.
I don't understand that way of thinking. Uncle Sam once paid me $70 a month to kill people with a gun. Who knows how many because they can't keep score in the infantry. They told me there was a purpose to it. As the years have gone by and events have unfolded I sometimes wonder if that were true. There have been setbacks and disappoints along the way and yet the idea of picking up a gun and killing everyone in sight has never crossed my mind, or the minds of the others I know and have known who once were paid to kill.
There are too many drugs and too many guns in this country, of that there is no doubt, but citing either as the cause is too easy. Wars have created a culture of killing and made it acceptable if the "right" people are doing the dying, but that doesn't seem to account for it either.
Maybe it's time for Americans to quit worrying about foreign terrorists and start concentrating on the homegrown variety. The idea that the country has been kept safe since the twin towers came down is laughable. Just where is anyone actually safe? Not walking along the street, not in church, not in school, not at work, not in a quiet small town, not even at home, not anywhere. You don't need to have enemies to be gunned down, you merely need to be in a certain place at a certain time. You needn't do anything more dangerous than shop for groceries or pump gasoline into your car.
So what's the answer? I certainly don't know, but the time is long past when people should think about it and perhaps find an answer. Americans need to know why this has become a land of mindless violence.


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