• • Worth the read...
• • 'We Have to Do Something'

Mike Rowe's heartfelt response to the tragic shooting at Parkland, Fla.'s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is exactly what Americans need to hear right now.

The former "Dirty Jobs" host on Saturday publicly wrote back to a fan who wondered why he had been silent on the issue

Mike Rowe shared Returning The Favor's episode.

Off the Wall

"Dear Mike. Where have you been? Your words are needed..."

Susan Collins

Hi Susan

Sorry I've been so scarce. I guess I could blame a chaotic production schedule, but the truth is, I've been absent because I don't know what to say in the wake of Florida.

Like most of you, I'm overwhelmed with pity for the victims and their families, but consumed with anger for the coward who chose to murder. Rage and sorrow are hard things to reconcile, and the more such things occur, the more apparent it becomes that there is nothing new to say. So forgive me Susan, if I repeat what I said after Vegas and San Bernardino.

Evil is real. As long as humans have walked the earth, people have chosen to do evil things. This is what happened in Florida. A nineteen-year old man chose to do an evil thing. He planned it. He executed it. He succeeded.

Should we endeavor to know why? Absolutely.

Should we discuss the impact of video games, accessible firearms, single-parents, no parents, powerful medications, social media, mental illness, bullying, or anything else we think might have encouraged him to choose evil over good? Without question.

But we should also stop confusing the influence of such things, with the root cause. Because nothing in this man's past can possibly explain his decision to kill seventeen people. If you believe otherwise, ask yourself why millions of other people with a similar past, don't make similar choices.

The past does not equal the future.

This is the most comforting thing I can tell you, Susan. It's also the most disconcerting. Because the facts are undeniable. People from horrible 

backgrounds often become the epitome of kindness. And people with every imaginable advantage, often go on to squander everything.

The past does not equal the future.

To the families of the victims I can only offer my sincerest condolences, along with my heartfelt wish that the man who killed their loved ones is removed from the planet with all due speed.

As for words, I can only repeat what others have said, and ask you to remember those who confronted evil with courage. People like Aaron Feis, the football coach who threw himself in front of the kids the killer was trying to murder.

Beyond that, I'm afraid I can offer nothing but my weekly attempt to prove that goodness also walks among us, just as surely as evil. In numbers far greater than our newsfeeds would lead us to believe.

Mike

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Ben Shapiro
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Posted: Feb 21, 2018 12:01 AM

The gun control debate is complex. It pits rights against duties. It pits individualism against communitarianism. It pits gun owners against anti-gun activists, and law-abiding citizens against one another. Most of all, it pits "common sense" against evidence. The vast majority of gun control proponents keep talking about "common sense" gun control, as though Americans could simply blue-sky some ideas about curbing highly sporadic acts of violence and fix the problem immediately -- and as though Americans were suffering from lack of will, rather than disagreement about method. That's simply not the case.

But there are things we can do.

Let's begin with the easiest thing: We can insist that our law enforcement agencies actually enforce the law. The Parkland, Florida, shooting occurred because the FBI failed to do its job. Not once but twice, the FBI was warned about the shooter. And not once but twice, it ignored the warnings. That isn't rare. We know that law enforcement screwed up in the South Carolina black church massacre; we know it screwed up in the Texas church massacre; we know it screwed up in San Bernardino. We know that, as of 2013, out of 48,321 cases against straw buyers -- people who buy guns for others, including those who aren't legally allowed to buy them -- just 44 had been prosecuted. We know that as of 2013, there were nearly 20,000 people in California alone who weren't legally allowed to own guns but owned them anyway. Giving the government more legal power to confiscate weaponry or prosecute those who are dangerous means nothing if the government blows every available opportunity.

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Where are all the grown-ups in times of crisis and grief? Don't bother searching America's prestigious law schools.

Two adult men, occupying lofty perches as law professors, argued this week that the voting age in the U.S. should be lowered to 16 because some high school survivors of the Parkland, Florida, shooting who want gun control "are proving how important it is to include young people's voices in political debate."

That was the assertion of University of Kentucky law professor Joshua Douglas on CNN.com. He praised some student leaders at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who've been making the rounds on TV, shouting at President Trump, Republicans in Congress and the NRA "to demand change" -- which Douglas defines obtusely as "meaningful gun control," whatever that means.

Because these children are apparently doing a better job at broadcasting his own ineffectual political views, Douglas asserts, "we should include them more directly in our democratic process" by enfranchising them now.

CNN recently interviewed Dr. Jean Twenge, author of iGen and her interview worried me - because I saw the truth that I would be facing in just a few short years.   Dr. Twenge started doing research 25 years ago on generational differences, but when 2011 -2012 hit, she saw something that would scare her to the core.   This is the year when those having iPhones went over the 50% mark.

The results of that should scare all of us.

This was the year that more kids started to say that they felt "sad, hopeless, useless... that they couldn't do anything right (depression)."
They felt left-out and lonely.
There is a 50% increase in a clinical level depression between 2011-2015.
A substantial increase in suicide rate.Before I give you any more, I want you to look at these graphs and look at how the information correlates to the iPhones being released. They aren't hanging out with friends nearly as much