by WorldTribune Staff, February 19, 2018
Sandy Hook, Isla Vista, Charleston, Las Vegas and now Parkland, Florida have tragic gun massacres in common, but that’s not all.
The author of the new book “The Boy Crisis” notes that “boys with significant father involvement are not doing these shootings.” “Minimal or no father involvement, whether due to divorce, death, or imprisonment, is common to Adam Lanza, Elliott Rodger, Dylann Roof and Stephen Paddock,” the book’s author, Dr. Warren Farrell, wrote.
In the case of 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, who killed 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida, Farrell notes “he was adopted at birth. His adoptive dad died when Nikolas was much younger, and doubtless the challenges of this fatherlessness was compounded by the death of his adoptive mom three and a half months ago.”
Farrell wrote: “The rate of mass shootings has tripled since 2011. We blame guns, violence in the media, violence in video games, and poor family values. Each is a plausible player. But our daughters live in the same homes, with the same access to the same guns, video games, and media, and are raised with the same family values. Our daughters are not killing. Our sons are.
“Without dads as role models, boys’ testosterone is not well channeled. The boy experiences a sense of purposelessness, a lack of boundary enforcement, rudderlessness, and often withdraws into video games and video porn. At worst, when boys’ testosterone is not well-channeled by an involved dad, boys become among the world’s most destructive forces. When boys’ testosterone is well channeled by an involved dad, boys become among the world’s most constructive forces.”
Terry Brennan, co-founder of Leading Women for Shared Parenting, pointed out that “The number of single-parent households is a good predictor of violent crime in a community, while poverty rate is not – 72 percent of adolescent murderers grew up without fathers; the same for 60 percent of all rapists; 70 percent of juveniles in state institutions grew up in single- or no-parent situations.”
Writing for PJ Media, Susan L.M. Goldberg, noted that “despite the growing number of experts, pundits and commentators drawing attention to the impact of fatherlessness on school and community safety, the post-attack discussion inevitably reverts back to gun control.
“Instead of spending so much as fifteen minutes on fatherlessness we are forced to endure the same salacious headlines, the same provocative tweets, the same tired old memes about the evils of guns as if somehow a cold piece of metal convinced yet another boy to become a mass-murderer. We ignore the lack of adequate mental health services, the failure of law enforcement to effectively intercede, and the sickening impact fatherlessness has on each one of these tragic cases. Why? Because it is easier to ban a hunk of metal than it is to right systemic cultural wrongs.”
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