AMERICA IN CRISIS: 1.14.23 - Has American Culture Ever Been More Violent Than It Is Right Now?

 Has American Culture Ever Been More Violent Than It Is Right Now?- by Michael Snyder - http://endoftheamericandream.com/has-american-culture-ever-been-more-violent-than-it-is-right-now/ When a six-year-old boy shoots his first-grade teacher with a gun, that should be a sign to all of us that our culture has gotten completely out of control. Sadly, most ofus will soon forget about that story because so many other examples of extreme violence will be making headlines. Our blood-soaked culture has produced an entire generation of young people that has become desensitized to violent acts, and that should deeplyalarm all of us. A lot of Americans tend to focus on the rise in violent crime rates in our major cities, but the truth is that violence can suddenly erupt literally anywhere in this current environment. Once upon a time, mass shootings were quite rare in the United States. Sadly, that is no longer true. According to the New York Times, there were 648 documented mass shootings last year… The Gun Violence Archive counted 648 mass shootings in 2022. Of those shootings, 21 involved five or more fatalities, including the attack at a Walmart in Chesapeake, Va.,on Nov. 22 and the shooting at an L.G.B.T.Q. nightclub in Colorado Springs on Nov. 19 that left five people dead. Just think about those numbers for a moment. We had almost two mass shootings per day in 2023. They have become so common that most of them barely make a blip in the news. Could it be possible that one of the reasons why this is happening is because our entertainment has become so saturated with acts of extreme violence? By the time the average child finishes elementary school, that child has seen approximately 8,000 murders on television. And by the time the average child reaches the age of 18, that child has seen approximately 200,000 violent acts on television. When will we finally admit that we have a major problem on our hands? When I was growing up, I never worried for a single moment that someone might bring a gun to my school and start shooting. Now such a thing happens all the time. But I didn’t expect to be reading about a six-year-old boy shooting his teacher. Somehow, a six-year-old boy was able to take a loaded gun with him to his elementary school, and the result was a great tragedy… The six-year-old boy who intentionally fired a gun at his first-grade teacher was moments away from having the weapon confiscated from him and may never be charged with acrime because of his age. Abby Zwerner, a first-grade class at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia, had just finished reading a story and were about to head to an art lesson when theyoungster pulled out the handgun. ‘She was going to confiscate it, and that’s when he shot,’ Brittaney Gregory, whose son was also in the class, told the Washington Post. At this point, I don’t know why anyone would want to teach in our public schools. The pay is extremely low in many states, and these days there is a chance that you could be physically attacked by one of your students at any moment. Fortunately, the teacher that was shot by that six-year-old boy is currently in stable condition… Teacher Abby Zwerner, 25, is stable after the life-threatening attack on Friday. She was shot at point-blank range – and the bullet went through her hand and into her chest. Let us hope that she is able to make a full recovery, because we certainly can’t afford to lose any good teachers. In many cases, school districts are having to put any warm bodies that they can find in front of students. For example, an art teacher in New Jersey that also happened tobe a drug addict recently overdosed on fentanyl right in front of his students… A New Jersey middle school teacher is facing charges after he overdosed on fentanyl in front of a classroom of students. Frank Thompson, 57, an art teacher at Roosevelt Intermediate School, was found unconscious and unresponsive by a school resource in a second-floor classroom after 9:00 a.m.on November 29, according to the Westfield Police Department. In the old days, teachers were looked up to as role models. But these days they are often worse than the students. Sadly, similar things could be said about many of those that are supposed to be protecting us from the rising tide of violence. When I was growing up, I was taught that police officers were to be honored and respected. But way too often today they are engaged in activities that are utterly shameful… Four police officers from the Nashville suburb of La Vergne were fired for allegedly having sex on duty with a female cop, who was also fired and accused of taking off hertop at what the local mayor called a ‘Girls Gone Wild’ hot tub party. Patrol officer Maegan Hall of La Vergne Police Department is at the forefront of the investigation after it was revealed in December that she ‘engaged in a sexual relationship’ with at least four male officers. What in the world has happened to us? Our culture has deteriorated so dramatically that even our women are now openly brawling in public. WATCH: https://twitter.com/i/status/1612285422779916291 As I watched that video, I kept wondering why the men that were standing around were not breaking up the fight. That is what would have happened in the old days. But in our time people have been trained to stand back and film such events because they make great material for our social media accounts. Our culture truly is coming apart at the seams all around us, and if we stay on this path it isn’t going to lead anywhere good. We desperately need to change course, but most of our leaders are not interested in a new direction. In fact, many of our leaders are some of the biggest criminals of all. So don’t expect things to get better any time soon. Unless something really dramatic happens, our blood-soaked culture is going to continue to deteriorate, and the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted ona daily basis is going to continue to disappear.