In the end, the world comes down to just a few people

I feel like if the American public were be polled to define the greatest overriding fault of my generation, the biggest piece of the pie graph would be "apathy and immaturity." Whether or not various statistics actually support that charge, I get the impression that, especially in comparison to more riotous generations of the past, Generation Y is largely characterized by our tendency to, in the face of crisis, say "meh," blog about it, and take a nap. Growing up, we were spoiled like no other generation (according to Wikipedia, the millennial generation was definitively started when "Baby on Board" signs appeared in car windows), and our lives have been cushioned by technology, taking away otherwise more laborious effort and conditioning us for immediacy. Most would fail to recognize those qualities as actual problems, though. Impatience and indifference, though not virtues, aren't particularly dangerous attributes.

That being said, I think that mindset can be horribly misleading. Something is seriously wrong with us, probably linked to our apathy, in a way that is totally and undeniably dangerous. After all these recent school shootings, I can't see how we can go on thinking that people my age are being calmly swept through the modern era. In the United States, only 8 school shootings were ever recorded by 1989. Between 1990 and today, 38 more have occurred, in cities spanning from California to Vermont. Five shootings were reported in the last two weeks. Something has happened to us, specifically, in a different way than any other generation, and along with fostering apathy and childishness, it's made us murderous.

I know it's hasty and unfair to argue that the roughly 45 people who brought guns to school indicate an epidemic failing in an entire American generation, but I think it's reasonable and justifiable to be concerned. People my age like to compare ourselves to the baby boomer hippies of the 60's, and I'd hate to think that we've taken whatever revolutionary spirit we inherited from them and, instead of fighting inequality or The Man, turned it against ourselves.