Here are some of your comments.

"I feel that it is a combination of things that push these children into doing these horrific crimes. Some of the things are peer pressure, needing to fit in, not feeling loved at home, lack of communication between parents and their children, and most of all, not enough mental fitness programs for the children who need it!" Lynette Adams, New Preston

"Emotion Management is a skill that should be taught to children. Since many adults have problems in this area as well,(thus the incidence of domestic violence, child abuse, suicide, "road rage", etc., we need to start here. Parenting classes should all include emotion management. We do it now in our pre-schools ... "What does our face look like when it is happy/mad? ..." And, I guess we then decide their development in this area is done. Higher schools generally will only discipline for improper emotional response, with no provisions of what is proper. Acceptable and unacceptable emotional responses need to be provided and demonstrated. We also need to poll our students as to their emotional climate ... What makes you mad regarding school/your classmates? Do you have hate? What do you like about your friends? How do you know if a student hates another student? Does anything scare you?... Does anything happen in school that makes you sad? I think this would greatly aid in problem identification." C.T., Litchfield

"Those kids needed someone to guide than away from violence. I think there is too much violence in our everyday life. I also think that boys have a hard time showing the feelings they truly have. Maybe they were brought up being told they should control their feelings and not show them. They were filled with hatred and may truly have serious mental problems but I find it hard to believe that the parents weren't aware of this. I think they choose the much too common path of out of sight, out of mind." Di, Meriden

"I blame the media hype that follows each crime as much as I blame parents and other guardians that allow their children access to weapons. Do not give these kids the attention they crave, keep the details in the police files where they belong." H.S.F., Ledyard

"I feel if parents had the right to discipline their children without the worries of crossing the line between punishment and abuse ... I think society should give parents back their right to parent and not to be social workers for their own children." R.A., no town

"Why would I blame a social generalization for an isolated incident?" Kris Spinka, Meriden

"I believe the whole problem is communication! The old," who, what, where and how" are people feeling and talking to each other. I work as a non-violence trainer in prisons and it is all the same -- communication. Yes, all the other things in your survey apply but they all come after how we feel and treat ourselves and others." Wendy, Norwich

"I believe it to be a combination of all the things you mentioned. As the parents of 16, 14 and 11 year olds I would hope that I would have seen the signs ahead of time. I also believe that parents have a powerful mechanism within that makes them believe that their children are "normal"!" L.T.H., Sherman

"We all must bear some responsibility because our culture accepts and even glorifies guns and violence, e.g., Rambo, action and gangster movies, violent rap and other lyrics, not to mention arcade and video games, all aimed at teen- agers. There's money to be made. But if we can change the culture about smoking, we should be able to do so with violence too. Aggression has its place, but its better expressed in sports and political debates or put to use in helping victims of war, sickness and poverty." O.W.V.. Lake Waramaug

"The recent shootings in Colorado could have been prevented if the parents of those two boys had been on the ball ... how could they have missed all of the bomb paraphernalia that was in one of the boys rooms?" W.C., no town

"The only thing you can blame this on is that we have taken GOD's teaching out of schools. There is no hope for people who have nothing to hope in ... and this goes for the parents that are rearing these kids. In the Bible it says that if you train up a child in the way they SHOULD go, when they get old, they won't depart from it. This is a truth that won't change and unless we DO change our approach to teaching kids morals and Bible principles, violence won't change." D.J., Meriden

"You cant blame TV,movies,games,security or weapons because people have been killing people for centuries before we had TV, movies, games, schools or guns. You cant blame parents because the law protects the child, not the parent. (Ask any parent who has had a violent child, the parent can not even spank the child. They have to wait untill the child turns 18 and pray the child gets arrested and sent to jail.)

"The New Haven Register ran an article several years ago about local childern getting into a civil war fort and vandalizing it. they made a bomb out of the black powder used for the cannons. At the end of the article they told you the article was written 100 years ago. Can't blame the Internet. And wasnt it Plato who wrote about the problems he was having with children?

"So, what is the answer? How do we protect the inocent from madmen? I don't know. But I do know that banning firearms,Punishing parents for trying to control a violent child and tying the hands of the police and the schools is not the answer. According to the media, one of the gunmen in Littleton had published threats on his website. At that point the parents should have been allowed to turn the child over to the state. If they could help him, fine. The police should have been allowed to search his room and arrest him. If they could not get him to stop then he should have been placed in jail, for life." Michael B. Sears, North Branford

"In today's climate of rush,rush,RUSH ... it easy for some of our troubled youth to fall out of the loop. Society is so concerned with protecting civil rights that certain preventative measures are avoided.

"As the parent of 3 adolescents I have, on occasions of "concern," done things that others say violate my children's civil rights. I have read notes, searched bookbags, bedrooms, pockets and vehicles!

"These protective measures have given me the ammunition to handle potential drug and alcohol abuse, peer pressure issues that concern my children and have given me peace of mind when suspicions are not confirmed. If parents and schools were more proactive I believe that fewer incidents like Columbine might occur." No name or town

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