In the Daily’s March 25 editorial titled “Where are their parents,” the lack of family values was blamed for the actions of two Arkansas boys who allegedly fired into a group of middle school students, wounding 11 and killing four. Since the boys were only 11 and 13 years old, I definitely agree that the boys must have been having some serious problems at home, leading to their psychotic behavior.

The current violence shown on television and in movies was also sighted as a possible cause for today’s violence. Obviously, the media has an effect on the population, but I think that the movies are being blamed too frequently for the violence. Hollywood wouldn’t make the action movies if they couldn’t sell any tickets to them. The audience wants to see the action, so it’s definitely not Hollywood’s fault.

Another reason that I believe violence is so common today is that the public does not have to face strict consequences. There aren’t many states that have the death penalty, which lets the criminals assure themselves that they will only be faced with a jail sentence, and their lives will be spared. I think if the government tightened the laws, people would be too afraid to commit the violent actions like the young Arkansas boys have done.

The nation is definitely facing extreme problems with violence, but I think the government is the only possible solution to the problems. I also wanted to point out a fallacy in the editorial. The article states that it was common to see characters on the “The A-Team” shoot people in the television series. Maybe the Daily writers should take advantage of the “The A-Team” reruns that are currently being shown on FX. They never shot anybody on that show; they just shot at the ground.

Steve Balvanz

Freshman

Architecture