Disgusting, but not surprising.

There was a murder over Independence Day weekend.  A kid celebrating his 21st birthday attacked and stabbed a homeless Vietnam veteran. 

I say it's not surprising because I know that age group, and I know how many of them have grown up in a home where the parents are either absent entirely, leaving them to raise themselves without a sense of right and wrong, or the parents want to be their "friend," and it's a miracle if they ever learn to distinguish between right and wrong because they have no boundaries set. 

I will admit, it's not easy to raise children.  Especially not smart ones, who want to know why you told them not to throw things in the house, or why you're telling them not to run in the house, or why they have to stop doing something they want to do (but has the potential to hurt them really badly).  I'm still trying, though.  I've set boundaries, and told the imp that he's not to do this or that because he might hurt himself or someone else.  If he goes ahead and does it, and it's only going to hurt him (a little), I let him, because then he doesn't do it again.  If it has the potential to hurt someone else, I immediately stop him, and tell him he's going to hurt someone else.  If he persists, I spank him. 

Boundaries are important.  Kids need to learn, and early, what is and isn't acceptable behavior.  They need to learn that other people have feelings, and that their lives are also important.  If children don't learn that as children, they won't learn it as adults, either.  And they end up seeing the world as something placed for their convenience, and peopled by cardboard cutouts. 

Parents used to teach their kids right from wrong, or if they didn't, their church family did.  In a nation peopled increasingly by adult-aged spoiled toddlers who don't want to put themselves out to raise their kids, or listen to a message that there is an absolute moral code by which they should live, we're going to see a rise in the number of nasty little sociopaths, and stupid ones who can't see why they should put on a mask to fit in and hide what they are, much less be able to.