Not directly of course. But I wonder if our culture of political correctness where kids are given trophies for showing up and trying, but not actually for winning doesn’t indirectly lead to acts like the one James Holmes perpetrated against movie goers in Aurora, CO.

When a child is brought up on a steady diet of false praise and is given trophies just for showing up and trying, perhaps this leaves him unprepared for the real, adult world where only success is rewarded, not just giving it one’s best.

I wonder if perhaps Jmaes Holmes didn’t find this transition from the mollycoddling of childhood and youth to the real adult world where he was expected to actually be successful before he got any kind of reward or recognition too much, and then this made him simply snap and do what he did.

Perhaps it’s time for a return to a more realistic way of dealing with children. Bring back scorekeeping, winning and losing in children’s sports, bring back the red marker for correcting mistakes on assignments and for goodness sake, stop giving kids trophies just for showing up and doing their best!

Maybe if kids see that this is just how life is, we can avoid another Aurora, CO shooting in the future.