Don't blame the store for selling butane, blame the girl who inhaled it

Personal responsibility is a foreign term in many people's vocabularies today. Politicians can never admit to making a mistake, drug and alcohol abusers love to say someone else made them do it, in addition to people too lazy to work, squandering taxpayers money to fund their lazy lifestyles. Such an icky term for modern use but why not? Many people do not want to take account of their actions, happy to place the blame on someone else. Subsequently, it comes as not surprise a One News journalist went to hunt down the convenience store which had Butane on display in the store window. Strung together by political correctness, she passively twisted the store attendants arm enough to make him remove the bottles from any passerby glances. Sadly, she missed the point of who really lies at fault.

The 17 year old girl who was stupid enough to start huffing Butane killed herself. It could not be said more simply. She knowingly brought a product from a convenience store (Dairy), before proceeding to an area in Riccarton, Christchurch with the butane canisters. Each girl then took turns in sniffing the awful substance, before one of them began to suffer from grogginess. Despite the best efforts of Ambulance medics and local residents, the girl was unable to survive.

There has been an unsettling movement in western culture to never take personal accountability. When something bad is done, such as huffing butane, it is the storekeeper's fault for "preying on vulnerable teenagers." Although people may derive short term satisfaction for slamming a casual shopkeeper,  harder questions will be pressed on by those who are brave enough to voice them. Why was that girl huffing butane? Shouldn't she have been taught better than to engage in such an activity? How come responsible users of butane are about to be suffer on account of a cockeyed teenager misbehaving? One news journalists, as politically correct as they may be, ought to have been pressing the parents hard on the matter; rather than pestering a shop keeper, who is selling a very useful flammable gas.

Parents need to be educating their college students against the very real dangers of illicit drugs, alcohol abuse, and huffing or sniffing toxic substances. Try as hard as some might, eventually the body will collapse under the abuse of these activities. And that is nobody's fault except that person.