The decline in the existence and prevalence of social structures that foster maturity and self-discipline is part of the problem. Without organizations like Scouting which was once very much a part of the lives of American boys, many young men have no alternative role models to the men in their lives or any men in their lives.

I am always drawn back to one of the first school shooters, a lost-in-the-system foster care kid named Patrick Purdy who attacked a school yard filled with children, many of them Hmong, in Stockton, California. I remember thinking that the person who did the shooting probably had been a student at that school. I was shocked and even sadder to learn that my speculations were quite accurate.

Purdy was an example of system failure in a system that is largely hidden from public view.