<p>(CNN) – Five children were found shot to death in a home near Tacoma, Washington, Saturday afternoon, police said.</p>
<p>Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer told CNN that the children, ages 7 to 16, were killed by their father, who apparently committed suicide later in nearby King County.</p>
<p>The children – four girls and one boy – were found in a Pierce County home.</p>
<p>Troyer said the children’s mother was located after the shootings.</p>
<p>In the last two days, we had 14 people shot in New York, 4 officers killed in Pittsburgh and 5 children killed in Washington. Wow. WOW. =[</p>
<p>These tragedies are heart wrenching and I am almost afraid to open up the news each day as it seems to be almost daily that there are major tragedies of this nature! I get so sad reading it and I don’t even know the people involved and can’t imagine if I did. And some of the worst stories that seem prevalent these days are of family members killing and wiping out their entire family, usually including young children, and often then killing themselves. I find it hard to fathom how a parent can kill their own CHILDREN. It seems like there is a story of this sort in the news every day lately. :(</p>
<p>Some parents who are contemplating suicide will kill their children because they don’t want them to have to deal with the cold, cruel world without the parent’s help. I remember reading about it years ago when a Japanese mother took her kids out into the surf and drowned them, prior to her own attempted drowning.</p>
<p>Sometimes it’s a matter of not being able to see the difference between oneself and one’s children. It’s a psychological inability to see them as separate people with their own destinies and not as something that ‘belongs’ to the parent. It’s very sad.</p>
<p>True…I mean SOMETHING must not be “right” in the minds of a parent who does this. Because no rational person would kill their own kids. It is hard to understand it because it is simply not “understandable” because most of us do not think like a person who kills others, including their kids, think.</p>
<p>In the past, it would occur in a community and wreck havoc on the community. The news would stay there. Now, we get news from around the planet, daily. I remember reading the Midwife’s Tale, a true account of life on the Maine frontier around 1800. One section dealt with a father killing all his family and the impact on the small frontier community. I remember thinking that his happened in the past, is happening now and will continue to happen until perhaps we can have more understanding of ourselves and our neighbors. I believe understanding the workings of the human mind is the last great frontier.</p>
<p>It’s not just parents. Last week it was a boy who killed his siblings. In general, there seems to have been such an upswing in these mass murders – in recent weeks it seems as if there are several horrific events each week.</p>
<p>There are several horrific mass murders a week. It seems to be almost commonplace when I open the news in the morning. Another day, another mass murder. </p>
<p>This is worrisome on so many levels, not the least of which is the general mundaneness with which these events are now reported. The entire fabric of American society is threatened, but most people are not attuned to the dangers.</p>
<p>and let’s not forget the 3 Pittsburgh police officers shot yesterday.</p>
<p>I’m not worried about people who ‘cling to their guns’, I’m worried about the people who are shooting their guns. It’s just too easy to make an instant, rash, life ending decision with a gun in your hand…</p>
<p>sueinphilly, about the Pittsburgh officer shooting…not sure if you read this but the young man who shot them apparently (according to his close friends who spoke with the media) was worrried that Obama was going to prohibit guns. His solution? He used the gun to kill three cops (who, of course, are armed) </p>
<p>I also worry about families who got a gun for self protection (I would asumme that’s why they have a gun? it is not like the family member has been committing crimes before these family killing incidents), have it available to take out their family should their mindset turn this way, either rashly or with a plan.</p>
<p>“In many of these cases this is the human fallout of this devastating economy.”</p>
<p>One of the reasons that bubbles should be avoided. It’s like a drug in that it provides a great high and then we come crashing down. It’s a lot harder to have a lot and then lose it all than it is to live with very little for a long period of time.</p>
<p>“I also worry about families who got a gun for self protection (I would asumme that’s why they have a gun? it is not like the family member has been committing crimes before these family killing incidents), have it available to take out their family should their mindset turn this way, either rashly or with a plan.”</p>
<p>I just had a look at an article on the safest and most dangerous states in the US. The safest is NH (where I live) which is the Live Free or Die state and where there is relative freedom to own guns. The dangerous states seem to be concentrated in the southeast this time, also places where people can own guns. I noticed that the Northeast states weren’t in the 20 most dangerous states. The Northeast is known for an educated populace and maybe that makes for safer states.</p>
<p>The problem with people killing their families seems to me to be a mental health problem. Tremendous stress can bring them out a latent problem or there may be a short-term problem. Mental health problems are very complex and something that society would prefer to be out-of-sight and out-of-mind so we may have to deal with these problems in our current stressful condition.</p>
<p>BCEagle, I agree that it is a mental health problem. But it is scary that when things turn this way with a family member, or even non-family members, that these folks have a gun they had purchased perhaps for a different reason originally and then have it at their disposal and cause a GREAT deal of damage to MANY people in a short period of time, which is hard to do by another method. So, the combo of mental health issues are compounded with having tools at their disposal to carry out a deed that they might not otherwise be able to carry out or to do so this easily. It is scary and is happening a lot. </p>
<p>I live in a “safer” state too, like you (NH)…in VT. I don’t know if the reason it is safe is due to an “educated populace” or not. There are a LOT of rural poor folks who are not college educated in my state. At my children’s high school, one third of the graduates are not college bound. I venture to say that greater than one third have parents who did not attend college.</p>
<p>I read recently that the area surrounding Dartmouth is the most recession proof in the Country. Who would have thought? Maybe it’s safer to let folks have guns when that’s the case.</p>
<p>In the NY shootings, the guy had a permit to carry a handgun and had it for a decade. How can that be? His jobs were delivering sushi and making vacuum cleaners. I thought you had to have a personal or job related need for such a permit.</p>
<p>“I read recently that the area surrounding Dartmouth is the most recession proof in the Country. Who would have thought? Maybe it’s safer to let folks have guns when that’s the case.”</p>
<p>We have a remarkably low unemployment rate here, access to the big city, lots of recreational opportunities, low population density, very low minority populations and lots and lots and lots of cold weather.</p>
<p>I know it’s easy to get into a discussion of guns, but I don’t think that explains the upswing in crime – although it may provide the means to commit some of them (the boy who killed his sisters used a knife.) Guns have been around for years. What has changed now that suddenly there is such a proliferation of people shooting up their towns, their families, random strangers, etc.? There are obviously plenty of people who own guns who would never dream of committing such an act. What is going on with those people who suddenly turn so intensely violent? While there have been cases, such as the one a few miles from my home, where a man killed his entire family and the precipitating factor was the economy, I’m not sure that explains everything. There was the awful case of the man who entered a Christmas party as Santa Claus and decimated his ex-wife’s family. Not economic. Something is deeply wrong.</p>
<p>I agree with Tom1944… There have been several recent cases where a parent, often in a bitter custody situation, commits murder-suicide. It strikes me as the most intensely cruel thing one can do to an ex.</p>
<p>hmom5, I don’t know about the laws in NY. But in my state (MN), almost anyone can get a concealed carry permit to have a loaded handgun in public places. There are some exceptions (if you are not listed in the “gang database” for the state, prohibited to have a gun under federal law, have a domestic abuse assault conviction in recent years, and some other ones), but most people can get one. Scares the crap out of me that my gun-loving ex can have one.</p>
<p>Interestingly, there are some places you can’t carry it under the law. State owned buildings are on the list! Looks to me like legislators wanted to protect themselves, but to heck with the rest of us out in public…</p>