OK - I know that everyone is going to be seeing this on the news soon enough...

[witzend]

Janet, that sounds like a nice concert to bring McK to. Allan and I always bring earplugs if instruments are going to be plugged in, and sometimes to movies too.

I think we let M see Batman at home. He was about 4 when the first one came out. UAN - Pulp Fiction? OMG! I could barely handle Pulp Fiction! Once was definitely enough for that movie! I remember being really angry that L's dad took her & his girlfriend to see "There's Something About Mary" when she was about 11 and getting into trouble for being too - outgoing. The first thing she did was come to my house and tell me about the "hair gel" scene. OMG, no WAY! She didn't appreciate at ALL that I didn't think that a 40 year old man and his date should take an 11 year old girl with no mother figure in the house out to see that movie.

Honestly, I think that the movie makers push the envelope with these things. I don't think that the story could NOT be told without the graphic stuff that makes it PG-13. They just worry that adults won't go see it if it's not PG-13. Absurd. If you make a good movie, people will go see it.

The shooting is a tragedy that is completely outside of what I am talking about here. I felt so badly for his mother, it sounds as though she knew something like this was likely to happen and had tried to get help for him. There but for the Grace of God...

[rm1976]

The first movie we took GFG to see was "Terminator 2." He was three years old. I did try and keep him from seeing the gorier parts of the movie, but he kept telling me to stop trying to cover his eyes because he couldn't see, lol. He didn't seem to be any worse for wear from seeing that movie (he was quiet during the movie, btw, or one of us would have taken him outside). Honestly, I think he was more traumatized from seeing "Home Alone," because he went through a phase where he was afraid we were going to leave him alone somewhere. As long as those kids weren't disturbing anyone (in other words, as long as they were being quiet), and didn't have to get up the next morning to go to school, I don't see an issue with it.

As for what happened, I'm horrified. This kind of thing is happening way too often.

[Kathy813]

Witz, I feel bad for the parents of the shooter, too. We all know it could be any of us. They just showed the poor father at the airport heading to Colorado. Can you imagine having your child do something like that and then being hounded by cameras everywhere you go?

Of course, there will be people blaming the parents for what the shooter did. They will blame poor parenting rather than mental illness. His mother made the comment that they had the right suspect which implies she knew that he was mentally unstable and could do something like this. I bet as time goes by we will hear the usual story of parents that have dealt with this for years and tried to get help unsuccessfully.

~Kathy

[Hound dog]

Not having a whole lot of facts, sounds like schizo behavior gone full tilt (there is a range of schizo disorders) I did catch on the news something about the parents worried he might be unstable......but honestly, we all know what it's like with a kid over 18. If you can't get them to cooperate it's next to impossible to get them any help.

I sat and watched the news with the grandsons. Of course Darrin was the only one old enough to "get it" and then only when I explained what happened so he could understand. Then, like I always did with my own kids, we did a What If chat........where he is the one in the hot seat, what would he do, what would his choices be, what would increase his odds of survival? Oddly enough, I hate that pc and sil let the boys play Call of Duty, but when I asked Darrin what would happen if he got up and tried to run for it........he said Nana, he'd shoot me, just like in the game. So together we worked out it would be best to find cover (the seats, behind or under) and stay put until you knew it was safe to move, then keep behind things and crawl to the safest exit.

Yeah. I did this stuff with my kids their whole lives. They knew to duck and cover at the sound of gun fire before preschool......a car backfires and they still tend to duck and cover. (we'll just say they're not standing in the open wondering where the sound came from) Now drive by shootings made that necessary. But I was constantly teaching them things such as that. No it didn't make them paranoid or anxious, it armed them with real information in an emergency Nichole heard about the shootings and she was amazed people got up and tried to make a run for it. I did see where some crawled out and made it safely.

I am someone who did take my kids everywhere I went. Gfg or pc, they were all well behaved. But they never saw any movie in a theater that wasn't literally for a child, and usually disney or some such. And they just plain never went anywhere after bedtime, which was 7pm. If dh and I wanted to see a movie not suitable for them, we waited until we could rent it and watch it after they went to bed. Babysitters were a luxury I didn't have.

[Dammit Janet]

Honestly parents do take small children places one wouldnt they would do so. Step before you say you wont, just wait until bean is here. You will find out soon enough that you will. Babies sleep through most everything. As far as the younger school-aged kids, Batman has been such a part of their lives for so long that this movie was the last in a series that you couldnt beat them off with a stick. Im sure they have heard much worse language either at home or at school and the violence either on TV or in video games. Heck 2 out of 3 TV shows have at least 6 episodes of violence in them.

While this is the worse massacre in US history, it is completely random and extremely. I am absolutely sure we will find out this suspect had slid into schizophrenia. He is at the age when that is the prime time when it begins to show its ugly head. He had been a brilliant young man all through childhood, HS and even into early college. Something caused him to snap. He didnt decide to just go off on a shooting spree because he was perfectly sane. If you notice, he actually looked like a young Adam West in his HS yearbook photo. I sort of wonder if that had something to with it.

As far as the parents, I feel so sorry for them but as Dr. Drew pointed out tonight, there really was nothing much they could do other than try to talk to him and ask him to get help. The mental health system ties parents hands where it comes to forcing adult kids to get help without their consent. These parents may not have even known he had withdrawn from school. He was living in a different state. I hope the public doesnt blame them. They are completely normal parents and they gave him a completely normal life, sending him to excellent schools to prepare him for life. He was such a gifted man. He was a very gifted man. It is a complete shame all around.

[StepTo2]

Janet, I'm pretty sure. Mostly b/c I wouldn't do that to JETT. Heck, when Twilight came out we didn't take ONYXX to the midnight showings b/c the next day was a school day and it was more important... And she was, what, 13?

Taking Bean "everywhere", yes but there are limits.

[TerryJ2]

Yes, Witz, I noticed that right away. I read it aloud to gfg this a.m. at breakfast. I said, "For the first two yrs at least, you either stay home or get a sitter. Period. And NOT that kind of a movie!"
Idiots. Total, illogical selfishness.

[witzend]

I am absolutely sure we will find out this suspect had slid into schizophrenia.

I was out at the neighbor's last night and they were talking about this. They came right out of the gate with "Did you see what his mother said? She said 'you've got the right person.' What kind of a mother knows that their kid can do that and just let him be. She shouldn't have let him have guns!" These are gun people, too. I just looked at her and said, "No way. She said that because he's 24 years old and she knew something was wrong and he's an adult and she couldn't get him the help he needed. He's most likely schizophrenic and she couldn't do a thing to help him because the law prevents it - especially out of state." She asked "Well, why'd she let him move out of state then?" I told her, "How are you going to stop a grown man from moving out of state?" Then it was "Why'd they give him college money?" Probably because he was intelligent enough for college, and he got grants and loans and while he was out of state they couldn't really see how bad it was." "I guess...", she said.

Taking Bean "everywhere", yes but there are limits.

Good for you, Step. When we have kids, we should know that there are certain adult activities that we shouldn't take them to. I'm sure that a lot of kids love violent movies when they're little, but is that really what we want their entertainment to be? For crying out loud, we watched "The Simpsons" twice in our home because that's all it took for M to start acting exactly like Bart Simpson but without the lesson that Bart learns at the end of every episode. Bart Simpson may be funny but he's not fun to live with. It was "Mr. Rogers", "Reading Rainbow", "3, 2, 1, Contact" for us. You can bet your sweet bippy I wasn't into those programs and I would have rather have watched "The Simpsons", but "The Simpsons" made M a jerk and I wasn't going to have ANY of that.

[TerryJ2]

Geez.

[rm1976]

Some of you people are just as bad as those who are judging the shooter's parents. You hope the parents of the kids at this movie are capable of learning a lesson? What lesson? That if you take your kids to a movie late at night, they might get shot? They could just as easily have been shot at 6:00 p.m.