>>>>>>http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/20/justice/australia-student-killed-oklahoma/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
>>>>>>
>>>>>>So far, nobody has indicated whether the three ba$tards that did this were white/black/Hispanic/hare Krishna/??.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I really don't care. I have plenty of room in the pasture to recycle them. Bring them here - preferably alive.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>UPDATE: Yes - My spelling stinks today
>>>>>
>>>>>If those killers don't end up in jail for life then there's something very wrong.
>>>>
>>>>They should end up with some very stiff sentences, even in Oklahoma.
>>>
>>>IMO that just penalizes the taxpayers. They'll be stuck supporting the ba$tards for the rest of their lives either in prison or out.
>>
>>True, but I don't think (note the optimal use of the word) Oklahoma has the death penalty any more....
>
>Death penalty is irrelevant here, I think. IIRC, not allowed for kids any more.
>
>Does no one else wonder what the hell happened to kids 15, 16 and 17 that would lead them to do this? This is not normal behavior; bored kids don't generally go out and shoot someone. So how they'd get their hands on a gun (or guns--the article doesn't say)? And what came before this?
>
>I'm not saying they shouldn't be punished, but if we don't learn from this and fix whatever's broken, then we allow it to happen again.
>
>Tamar

I believe what might happen very often is the realistic display of death and violence in movies, video games and internet that creates a numbness regarding to violence. Kids in this age are extremely easy to manipulate by those images, and they get branded into the brain from early youth. Not every young person reacts in the same way to these influences, but if we would make a survey to see how much television, video or game time those kids had on average, in most cases we would see most kids that produce these evil results would score higher than average on video time.

Secondly the parents of those kids may also contribute with their life style, comments or violent nature. For instance there was one case of a shooting in a school in south Germany were some children died. The shooter was a teenager, but what was interesting was that his father was a weapon collector who kept his guns in his home. In Germany only a small minority of people own guns and go to shooting ranges, so that this kid came out of this environment was very interesting because it is either a coincidence, or it shows in fact that the example of the father and the easy availability of the weapons contributed to this act.

If I am not wrong the mother of the shooter at Sandy Hook was also collecting guns and went to shooting ranges, which is more common in the US, but still looks like a contributing factor.