Bonjour, Good Day!!!

Bonjour!! Ok, so I'm from the South. I've gone west and had people tease me about my accent...and I've had people come east and criticize our food(Of course, the latter of these two were family that have become traitors to their own southern blood). While I've never really had anyone criticize me for be to chatty (except one senile teacher) or friendly (although I do make it a point to be so),I have often heard these terms used in referring to some southerners. I guess this might be the case, for its not unusual to stand in the line at a grocery store or a doctors office and make small talk with some complete stranger.
While on vacation a few weeks ago, it seems my family and I had found the friendliest town on earth. Everywhere we stopped people were more than happy to help, and even more happy to chat with you. Our frequent creek side picnics led to friendly waves and hello's from passing canoes, rafts, and tubers. But then, one evening, my Dad and I were waiting in the car while the others picked up some items from in the grocery store. He was reading a magazine and I was engrossed in a book, as usual, when the man loading his motorcycle beside us walks up to the window of the car and starts chatting with us. And the sad thing was, I had to put my guard up...I mean, here was a man, telling us about his wife's birthday party and the baptism that he had attended earlier in the day, and here was me, on the edge of my seat, waiting for him to pull a gun out and demand what little cash I didn't even have.
I can't help but ponder about how sad this truly is. Somewhere along the line, people of stopped caring about one another, and now, its not even safe to go to school, church, or the mall. Every day that one steps out of their house, they are putting the fate of their lives in the hands of everyone around them, and it's sad to say, that some people just don't care about others. As we see all of these shootings, gang fights, and such happening around us, I can't help but wonder what was going on in the attackers mind. The media feeds us all these sob stories about how they weren't mentally stable or how they were suffering from depression and such, but I can still not grasp my mind around how another person could think that they have the right to play God, and end others lives. What makes them think that they have the right to do this?? I truly can't imagine this, and would love to be able to pick their brains and figure it out...although I am sure that it wouldn't make much of a difference....thus, since we have the "psychos" running around town now, a simple conversation about a baptism sets me on edge.
I have a theory however, one that just recently occured to me. I work with children, and one of my pet peeves is when they tell me "My momma said, if someone hits me, that I need to hit them back." (NOTE: you must add the attitude and the head bobbing to get the full effect of this catch phrase) I remember this phrase from when I was a child, and knew that if I ever had to defend myself, that I could without fear of punishment later on. But it seems to me, that somewhere along the lines, the exact meaning of the phrase as been taking out of context....it now means things like this..."If I hit you first, and you hit me back, my mama said I could hit you again..." or "If you look at me wrong, my mama said I could hit you..." or "If it crosses my mind to hit you, my mama said I could hit you..." and lastly, "If I think I have reason to hit you, then my mama said, I could hit you..." Not only do the kids think this way, but it seems that the parents do too. You can tell that their kid kicked someone, or tried to choke another child (and leaves hand prints), and you would think that the next thing that tends to come out of their mouth is "You've got some explaining to do son/daughter..." well,no, it's "Well, what did the other child do to them." Thus we are left with kids who think they have the right to take matters into their own hands and aren't able to control their fists when they are angry....which eventually, I'm almost sure, leads to people who think they have the right to take others lives because they have a reason to not like them.
NOTE: I am in no means saying that all children are like this, in fact, I have some children that are very well behaved and are very confident and independent, yet, it seems, that I keep seeing more and more of this "My mama said hit you" ideas spreading around through my children, and I'm thinking that its something that we as adults need to correct before these children grow up and are set in this mentality.