Details like that leave some wondering if the shootings are more about parental neglect and . . The fragmenting of family and community. Ethics watchdogs, spiritual leaders and political figures from Dan Quayle to Hillary Rodham Clinton continue to lament the fraying of American culture and values. Conflicting tensions pull at families and institutions, sometimes at the expense of youths. Parents feel guilty because they work full time.
Schools shortchange students by providing fewer counselors.
Blatant neglect seemed to play a role in many of the school shootings. Weeks before the Moses Lake shootings, Phillips told Loukaitis that she felt suicidal and wanted a divorce, apparently clueless as to how her words might affect her son. But then there was Kipland Kinkel, who was 15 when he allegedly shot and killed two teen-agers and wounded more than 20 others at a Springfield, Ore., high school last year. His parents, who also were killed, had been so worried about his behavior that they had unplugged his TV and taken away his computer. Before the shootings, Kinkel wrote about killing his classmates.