As a society we also provide the means to enact violence. Pictures in major American newspapers show one of the two children in custody in connection with the Arkansas killings aiming a weapon as a small child. Such exposure and obvious approval by adults is the type of subtle encouragement toward violence that can later lead to child soldiers in Africa and more Jonesboros. Such seeds of destruction do not, of course, have to turn into reality. These organizations are allowed because they are seen as ways to occupy children, to socialize them, to teach them discipline.
Some programs go so far as to include marksmanship training.
It is true in every case that curing violence, at any age, is a challenge that must focus on violent and violence-prone individuals. But the culture of violence in which those so inclined act out their predilection is a societal problem and one that only the society at large can address and begin to solve. To ignore the problem simply will increase the peril to our nation and our children. The 1997 Morbidity and Mortality Report says that among children under 15 in the United States, the death rate from firearms was twelve times higher than among the next 25 industrialized countries combined. This piece was originally published for the Weekly Defense Monitor .