What should parents do to raise decent children and not Texas shooters?

I am writing as a veteran parent.  I had three children, they are all grown up now, they all graduated college, they all stayed off drugs. The oldest is married, the middle daughter is sadly doing a divorce, and youngest son has found a very nice girlfriend.  I count my parenting as a success.

For openers, parents of young children should try to stay married, at least until the children have grown up some.  To the point where I think state child services should seize children of divorced single parents and put them up for adoption, should those children fail to obey teachers or get into crime.

Kids need to be loved by their parents. They need encouraging words, praise, stories.  They need to be scolded, not too often, when they mess up.  They need a lot more love and encouragement than scolding.

All parents ought to take the kids to church on Sunday.

Small children ought to have a regular bedtime, say 8 PM, every night.

Kids ought to get fed three squares a day, with no, or at least very lightweight snack times in-between.

Kids ought to do a few hours of homework every school day.  Doing homework on the kitchen table while a parent prepares dinner is good.

Kids ought to go outdoors and play with neighboring kids as much as possible.  Playing with peers is far better for kids than letting them watch TV or play computer games.

Parents should read a bedtime story to their kids, every night.

Older kids ought to have bicycles, and ride them to school, baseball games, and other kid activities.

Kids ought to have good kid’s books to read at home.

Kids ought to be taught to swim as early as possible.  It is a tragedy to have a child drown.

Kids should go hiking and climbing.  Kids should be enrolled in Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, and summer camp.

Kids should have pets, dogs or cats or something.  And be responsible for their care.

Some of this stuff may be beyond the means of some parents.  As a parent you do the best you can.

 

 

 

 

 

So what about the Texas shooter?

The TV newsies have not said much about the shooter, Salvador Samos I think his name is.  They did mention that he was a high school dropout.  A bad sign.  High school is great fun, you get to meet friends and girls, they have sports and activities.  Even if your grades stink, they will graduate you and having a high school diploma is very helpful when you start job seeking.  If I could go back and do high school over again I would be right there, especially if I could become 15 years old again.  Looks like none of this good stuff mattered to Salvador. 

    We have not heard much from Salvador’s parents and grandparents.  The TV said his mother was a druggie and his father was a felon, not an encouraging background for parents who are supposed to be teaching their son how he should behave.  For some reason, tension at home? Salvador spent time (I wonder how much) with his grandparents.  The grandfather claimed on TV not to know of his grandson’s attitude problems.  For some undisclosed reason Salvador shot his grandmother in the face the morning he attacked Robb elementary school.  I had two grandmothers, I loved them both dearly, I cannot imagine even raising my voice to them, let alone shooting them.  This is weird behavior on Salvador’s part.

   Salvador bought two AR15 rifles.  The TV did not say but I assume he bought them new at a gun store.  Those things cost like $500 apiece, two of them is $1000.  And he bought either 360 or 1000 rounds of ammunition.  Last time I bought center fire ammunition it was $1 a round.  So that’s $1360 or $2000 depending upon whose story you believe.  I wonder where unemployed high school dropout Salvador got that kind of money.

   Then to shoot 19 appealing young kids in cold blood is beyond my belief.  The kid’s pictures are so cute, I would adopt any or all of them in an instant, Salvador kills them. 

   And we have not heard from any of Salvador’s teachers, doctors, priests, any grownup who knew Salvador.

Assault Weapon Ban

 Trouble is, there is no real difference that you can measure with a ruler between “assault riles” and deer rifles.  An “assault weapons ban” would be a ban on all rifles because there is nothing you can point to that makes assault rifles different from any other rifle. 

  In actual fact, there are styling differences.  The “assault rifles” are, or look like; AR-15’s, black plastic stock, detachable magazine, chambered for .22 center fire, and finished in some military antireflective and water resistant finish.  Hunting rifles usually have walnut stocks, any kind of ammunition feed, chambered for any cartridge ever manufactured, and blued metal work.  I submit that these are styling differences and do not make one more deadly than the other.

 

   The anti gunners pushing to revive the old “assault weapons ban” are perfectly happy to ban anything that shoots, so they don’t care. 

Gun Violence

 The newsies are using this phrase all the time.  Makes it sound like the gun did the crime.  “Gun violence” on the media is better described as either murder or armed robbery.  Both of these crimes are listed in the Ten Commandments. 

   Use of the “gun violence” phrase suggests the speaker is anti gun and wants to ban all the guns in America. 

Biden will switch us to battery cars

 rather than increasing US oil production.  He said as much on the last news conference.  "Transistion" he called it.  

Trouble is, new battery cars cost $60K as compared to a new econobox for a bit more than $20K.  And, cars last ten years nowadays so it would take 10 years to re equip everyone with a $60K battery car.  That's assuming people only buy new cars when the car they are driving needs replacement.  And the best they have claimed for battery range is 400 miles.  And it takes 2-3 hours on the battery charger to charge it up.  So a trip more than 400 miles will take 2-3 hours longer while you cool your heels waiting on the battery charger.  Whereas my old Buick with a full gas tank will go 500 miles (far enough to reach my daughter's place in Maryland).  And the gas tank refills in a couple of minutes.  And want to bet the 400 mile claim of battery range is inflated?  And nobody is talking about how long the battery lasts, and what a replacement might cost.  Ordinary car batteries only last 4 winters up here.  I have no idea how long a lithium battery might last.  Or what the chances of it bursting into flames are.  

Let's elect Republicans who will increase US oil production. 

Texas School Shooting is terrible.

 I an horrified by the Texas school shooting.  My sincerest sympathies to the bereaved. 

How useful is a hyprsonic missile?

 The Air Force announced a successful test flight of one just the other day.  Since the Chinese had announced they had a hypersonic missile a week or so ago, it sounds like the Air Force has had a hypersonic program going for quite some time.  It takes more time than a few weeks to get something like a hypersonic missile to fly.  Sounds groovy but... It takes a lot of fuel to get up to mach 5.  Wanna bet the range of this missile isn't so great?  Existing cruise missiles like Tomahawk fly somewhat below mach 1 and have transcontinental range.  You can launch from say England and hit most of Russia, all of the middle east, the northern half of Africa.  Tomahawk flies so low that ground radar cannot see it.  If the radar cannot see you the fighters cannot find you.  

   One fine day while I was in the Air Force Air Defense Command we were practicing.  We sent a target aircraft (a helpless T-33) up north and then turned him around to come south.  The radar guys got to practice tracking, the SAGE center got to practice vectoring fighters and the fighter crews got some flight time.  Only this day, the radar guys could not see the target.  "Can you come up another thousand feet?" the controller asked the target.  No joy, we still could not see it.  We had to get the target up to 10,000 feet before he showed up on radar.  I am sure that a Tomahawk cruise missile down at 1000 feet will never show on radar.   And Tomahawk has the range to go about anywhere. 

   So, groovy as hypersonic sounds, I am betting on conventional cruise missiles to do the work.