Photo courtesy of Tour Chautauqua

I don't think there is any one thing that is causing our problems, but here are a few to ponder about. Back then we didn't have Gangster rappers, we didn't have blood video games, we didn't have the Internet, and we sure didn't have laws prohibiting religious beliefs in school. Maybe it's me, but any parent that can let their child listen to lyrics about cop killing and wife beating has some issues that need to be resolved. What amazes me more is that the recording industry would let songs like that make it to the record store shelves. I think the effort and money that was put into the Napster case would be better directed at stopping material like that from being produced. That about puts today's music scene in a nutshell. So what about the video games. If you go in Yahoo and type in video games and drill down a couple levels into the search you will come to a new sub heading called "First Person Shooters" with over 2100 titles in that category. I don't know what shocked me more, that fact that there were over 2100 titles or that one of the titles was called "Bloodlust". Enough said about video games in those two sentences. As far as the next two, the Internet and Religion, they are pretty much self explanatory if you keep up with current politics. I guess I have a problem with some of todays laws when it is legal to write books on how to make a bomb out of fertilizer but it is against the law to pray in school.

So what are the steps to beginning to fix some of these problems. I don't think I will get much of an argument when I say it has to start at home. Family values seem to have slipped in the last 30 and 40 years. Teaching kids right from wrong is being left in the wrong hands these days. Lets take the kids and guns situation. Guns have been around for hundreds of years, schools have been around for hundreds of years, and kids have been around at least that long too (sorry for the sarcasm). One of the main differences is that the guns are more sophisticated today and kids are being tought how to use them on TV and in video games instead of under proper supervision. So instead of taking the long, hard road of implementing proper firearm education, let's just make gun's illegal and destroy them all. Oh, sorry execpt for the ones that are posessed by gangs and drug dealers, because "we will never be able to get all of them" as quoted by an anti-gun politician that will remain nameless. Sure, by the time the authorities get their hands on those guns someone has already been shot with them. Gesture politics, you have to love it.

As parents we have to take responibility for our kids instead of throwing them to the wolves and hope they taste bad. Take your kids fishing instead of spending that Saturday in the office, listen to your kids when they want to do something with you instead of buying them a video game to keep them occupied, and teach them the morals that we were taught 30 years ago. Some of todays problems may start to become more manageable if kids have someone at home to turn to when they are troubled by something.

If you have any comments regarding this article start a discussion on the WNYOutdoors message board. We will be there to talk with you as well as others that will share your beliefs.