Lousy parenting makes maniacs

Brooklyn: The starting point of the solution to our nation’s problem of copycat mass school shootings is for parents to monitor and alter the behavior of their teenagers. A large segment of parents seem to be doing a terrible job of parenting by not showing love and interest in the lives of their children. This lack of love and guidance drives teenagers to the internet, which is overwhelmingly destructive and negative. As a result, along with the internet, this new breed of bad parents has spawned a generation of emotional and social misfits — teenagers who can’t relate socially to their peers in a normal manner. As a result, if an adverse social event confronts them in school, a minute percentage of them become mass murderers. Guns are not the problem; socially and emotionally deranged teenagers are.

If every gun in our country were to be destroyed, murderers would still find alternate weapons. In the most recent shooting, the teenager used his father’s shotgun and pistol — not a machine gun, and not guns he purchased. I blame the parents and the internet.

I don’t think politicians are too stupid to analyze our nation’s problem. They simply want to be elected to public office. If politicians point a finger of blame at the parents. they will lose votes and not be elected; so, instead, they point the finger of blame at guns because guns don’t vote. Wake up, America! Ronald Palmese

Don’t encourage them

Staten Island: Let me get this right. In sporting broadcasts, the announcers tell us they dont want to show the morons running on the field so they dont get the fame they they are craving and have others imitate them. So why does the filthy media and papers like the Daily News give these sick mass murderers the fame that they seek that they will never get in a normal society? I beg all media outlets to stop their coverage of these lunatics.

Anthony Liverano

Pray for us all

Hauppage, L.I.: To Voicer Elizabeth D’Angelo: Sorry, you’re wrong. The problem is not that prayer has been taken out of the schools, but that parents have taken prayer out of the home.

Barbara Haynes

Set race aside

Brooklyn: Voicer Cindi C. Williams advises whites to focus on young white kids shooting up their schools rather than calling the police on blacks. Putting aside how racist it is to imply it is a white responsibility, though only a tiny proportion of whites do these acts, I would suggest that she and black people look at the astoundingly greater rate of black men committing murder (sixand-a-half times the white rate) and violent crimes than any other group. Perhaps, she should spend more time reflecting on those problems than on occasional slights in restaurants. If she believes, whites as a race are responsible for the acts of whites, does not the same reasoning apply to the incredibly high black rate of murder and other violent crimes? I suggest no group is responsible for individual criminal acts committed by its members. These are societal problems, to which all Americans should pay attention. J. Jeffrey Weisenfeld

What Obama did

Scotch Plains, N.J.: To Voicer Linda Carriero: When you speak in generalities and accuse President Obama of not making any progress during his administration you conveniently forget how he pulled us out of a recession, saved the auto industry, reduced the federal deficit, created jobs and got Osama Bin Laden, all the while working against a Republican Congress who made it their business to obstruct him at every turn, but now you want us to work together to help Donald Trump get things done. Tony Diliberti

Thanks, Trump

Copake, N.Y.: Where is the pro-oil conservative outrage now that gas prices have risen from $2.25 a gallon under President Obama to $3 a gallon under President Trump? I thought that “drill baby drill” Donald was going to make gas so cheap we would all think it was 1955. Since he took office, I have seen heating, driving and food prices all rise 25 to 40%. So much for being made “great again.”

Joseph Cannisi

Nixon’s bag of dirty tricks

Fishkill, N.Y.: So the President “orders” an investigation of the investigators who are investigating him and his campaign for criminal conspiracy? Remember when Richard Nixon attempted to get the CIA to call off the FBI from investigating a “third rate burglary” for “national security” reasons? History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce . Trump and his conspiracy theories are nothing if not farcical!

Gerald Browne

Free association

Bronx: Since The News loves juxtaposition in its headlines — Ivanka/ Palestinian deaths, royal weddings/ schoolkids’ funerals — I have one for you. Home Depot sells paint while the Easter bunny goes hippity-hoppity. Anita Mulé

Speak up!

Brooklyn: To Voicer Dennis Shivers: Would it be also impolite, rude and insulting to hear German, Italian, French, Russian etc. being spoken while you are shopping or at a restaurant? This is New York, the melting pot of the world. I believe there are more languages spoken here than in any other place in the planet. America is a Latin word! If you want to hear only English being spoken, move to England! Spanish is the second language of America. Get used to it!

Jorge Charriez

The language advantage

Manhattan: To Voicer Dennis Shivers: I ran internship programs for the city Department of Education for eight years and was responsible for placing roughly 70 kids in internships each summer. New York employers in the hospitality industry frequently requested kids who had learned culinary skills, event planning, etc., and were fluent in — you guessed it — Spanish! My former students were largely Dominican, Puerto Rican, Colombian and Ecuadorian, and for the most part were children of immigrants. Their parents toiled in low-paying jobs. Today those children of immigrants are catering or food and beverage managers at places like the Marriott, Hilton and Cafe Pierre. Moral of this story? Being educated and multilingual is the key to success and ascent into the middle class. Valerie Gulston

Dangerous substances

Manhattan: Several years ago methadone was the overdose poison. Now it’s worshiped! Heroin takes first place in 2018 and IV drug use houses are set to open in NYC. When do we begin to understand the real culprit is multiple drug use? Check with the medical examiner and their toxicology report.

Raymond Sanchez

What a ball

Spring Lake, N.J.: As Mayor de Blasio has succumbed to the inevitability of “recreational pot smoking,” I have been curious as to when this form of “recreation” will be introduced to our public school physical education curriculum. I think it will fit in great with calisthenics, running, basketball and all of the other great forms of recreation I enjoyed in gym class. Richard Smith

The chaos mayor

Bronx: Mayor de Blasio is sending this city in the wrong direction. Don’t do anything to people drinking on the street. Don’t do anything to people urinating on the street. Now stop cops from arresting those smoking pot on the street. Does he not know that letting these things go on will lead to other crimes? People go off when they drink and cause trouble. Smoking pot leads to other drugs. If you want to drink, smoke pot or urinate, do it in your own home, not on the streets of New York City. Jimmy Durda

Ride safely

AFP/GETTY IMAGES Manhattan: Re “It’s dangerous out there for bikes” (Op-Ed, May 19): With the weather turning warmer, more bicyclists are out riding their bikes and the odds of a pedestrian getting hit by a bicyclist increases. Many out there are careless and thoughtless: They ride on the sidewalk, ride in bus lanes, don’t stop at lights, don’t wear visible clothing at night, speed, ride the wrong way, talk and text on their bike, and wear earphones that make it difficult to hear anything. What bothers me the most is that we have spent millions constructing bike lanes and not all bikers use them. In addition, the newest thing is motorized bikes that restaurants use to make deliveries. Rather than build more bike lanes, we should be licensing motorized bikes and establishing a ticketing system. Perhaps then they will obey the rules . While I realize that riding a bike helps to alleviate traffic and pollution, this needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. It’s getting worse out there. Marcia Shulman