Word: gunning
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Gun-ay-SHAN-an-than...
...their own countries by focusing on a culture whose concept of freedom includes the right to buy a rifle in a supermarket. But it's not only Europeans -- and others who outlaw the private ownership of weapons -- who lay the blame at the door of America's uniquely libertarian gun laws. Gun control understandably becomes a mantra for Americans seeking to prevent a recurrence of the tragedy. After all, many societies face problems of youth violence; while it doesn't address the root causes of that violence, making weapons inaccessible effectively contains the damage. "Youth violence is on the rise...
...easy availability of guns may be a necessary component of the Littleton phenomenon, but it's not a sufficient explanation. After all, firearms have been widely available for decades, but random mass shootings by high schoolers are a comparatively recent phenomenon. And in a country such as Israel, where a large proportion of the population is almost permanently armed from its teenage years, gun crime is almost negligible. A second common explanation for alienated teenagers' venting their anger in shooting sprees is the glamorization of violence in American popular culture. "Hollywood, TV and and videogames have spearheaded a cult...
...second postwar phenomenon that may contribute to this American trend is suburbia -- mass shootings by high schoolers appear to be confined to mostly white, suburban schools, rather than the inner city communities more commonly plagued by gun violence. "Violence in minority neighborhoods and schools tends to be gang- and drug-related," says TIME correspondent Elaine Rivera. "In suburbia, though, it appears to be influenced by intense alienation and isolation, combined with easy access to guns and a culture that teaches kids, in everything from movies to foreign policy, that violence is a valid means of resolving problems." The isolation...
...There is no single or simple explanation for the emergence of high school shootings as a social phenomenon. And yet they are occurring too often to be dismissed as aberrations. Factors ranging from gun laws to a violent popular culture to the breakdown of community values have combined to turn the playground massacre into a symbol of a deep cultural crisis in late-20th-century America. The First Lady a few years ago used the aphorism "It takes a village to raise a child" as the title for a book. But America has yet to make that particular African proverb...