For some children of the ’60s, the decade’s most traumatic crimes weren’t the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy or the martyrdom of Martin Luther King — or even the appalling 1963 Klan church bombing that killed four black girls in Birmingham. It wasn’t even the rape, torture and strangulation of eight student nurses by a psycho named Richard Speck in Chicago in mid-July of 1966.

The most terrifying violence came two weeks later when a former U.S. Marine named Charles Whitman killed his wife and mother before taking an arsenal to the University of Texas tower and shooting everyone he saw. By the time an Austin cop took him out, Whitman had killed 16 people and wounded 31.

As a kid growing up the Bay Area, I viewed Stanford’s Hoover Tower and the Campanile at UC Berkeley differently after that. One day, while walking by Saints Peter and Paul Church in North Beach, my dad said that Joe DiMaggio had gotten married there. My kid brother asked if a madman had ever used the cathedral as a perch to shoot people below in Washington Square. Parents assured their children with the only logic they could muster: Such crimes are rare, they said. This was true then. It’s not true anymore — and hasn’t been for a while.

As a cub police reporter in San Diego in 1979, I was on the scene for the first mass shooting at an American elementary school. The anomaly wasn’t only the choice of target, Cleveland Elementary School, but also that the shooter was a girl, 16-year-old Brenda Spencer.

The first mass shooting in a church took place the following year when a 46-year-old atheist walked into the First Baptist Church in Daingerfield, Texas, yelling “This is war!” It wasn’t war, but it seemed like hell to the parishioners cowering in the pews. Daingerfield and the Cleveland Elementary School revealed that no place was a sanctuary.

Since then, America has suffered through at least eight other such attacks on places of worship, one of them a Sikh temple in Wisconsin. Three of these killers have professed racist, homophobic or white supremacist views; another hated Baptists. One was a Muslim angry about the killings at Temple Emanuel in Charleston, S.C.

The litany of colleges devastated by such crimes grows yearly. Everyone remembers the carnage at Virginia Tech, but have we forgotten the mass shootings at Northern Illinois University, Arizona, San Diego State, Umpqua Community College and Santa Monica College? Yes, Columbine High School and Sandy Hook Elementary were shocks to the national psyche, but killers have slaughtered innocents at a host of other schools, including another Cleveland Elementary in California, this one in Stockton.

In 2012, after 12 movie-goers were gunned down in Aurora, Colorado, I wrote a four-part series examining the issue. Since then, four of the five deadliest shootings in U.S. history have taken place. Twenty-six dead in Newtown, Connecticut, including 20 kids ages 6 and 7. Forty-nine at the Pulse club in Orlando; 58 killed and more than 500 wounded in Las Vegas last month; 26 killed a week ago at a small Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.

Speaking for millions of Americans, the time for business-as-usual is over. We need a national dialogue on this plague, followed by concrete action. It’s time to put everything on the table, and I do mean everything. Mass shootings are not a new phenomenon. But the death toll has become staggering, and the ripple effects to the society potentially debilitating. The entrenched battle lines between Democrats and Republican are killing this country. Resuscitating it will require liberals and conservatives to put their fellow Americans ahead of stale ideologies and mindless talking points.

In 1903 the streets of Winfield, Kansas were turned red by Spanish-American War veteran Gilbert Twigg. Twigg killed nine people and wounded many more at an outdoor concert before turning a revolver on himself. “The boys around town had referred to him as ‘Crazy’ Twigg,” the local paper reported later, “but no one thought he was dangerous.”

Today, we all know that mentally ill men with a proficiency with firearms, no job and a seething anger toward society are quite dangerous. So why such easy access to firearms? One reason is that our laws are too deferential to the rights of the mentally ill.

Charles Whitman suspected, correctly, that he had brain damage. He told his shrink he fantasized about shooting people from a tower. His therapist told no one. Aurora multiplex killer James Holmes told his psychiatrist that he had “homicidal thoughts” three or four times a day and that it was getting worse. She told no one. Jared Loughner, the Tucson shooter who wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford and 13 others while killing six, acted so oddly that some students and teachers refused to be in the same class with him. But he could buy guns. Let’s change that.

Here are other steps to consider:

• You don’t like how Donald Trump speaks about Muslim immigrants? I don’t, either. But let’s not pretend we don’t know who attacked the Pulse nightclub, Fort Hood, two Chattanooga military bases, the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, or who drove the deadly truck in New York City. The answer is Muslim immigrants or first-generation Muslims radicalized by Islamic extremist groups. The Trump administration wants stricter vetting of such people? Isn’t that an obvious need?

• You like the Second Amendment? I once did, too. But the arsenal Stephen Paddock took to the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas included weapons for a battlefield. If the National Rifle Association keeps defending the unlimited right of Americans to hoard such weapons, millennial generation voters already flocking to liberal candidates and causes will eventually repeal it. Take heed, NRA.

• What about existing gun laws — why aren’t they enforced? How was a dangerous convict like Devin Patrick Kelley able to purchase his guns after being cashiered from the U.S. Air Force and serving time for beating his wife and stepson? Slipped through the cracks, did he? We should have laws making such negligence a criminal offense.

• The Second Amendment isn’t the only constitutional hurdle we must confront. I’m a journalist who relies on the First Amendment for my livelihood. But is it time to set limits? Social scientists have known for 50 years that Americans’ unfettered access to violent programming contributes to aggressive behavior and copy-cat crimes. The Aurora shooter attended a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises” with dyed hair and guns, having left chemical booby traps back in his apartment adorned with Batman posters. He told cops he was the Joker. So far, lawsuits targeting studios — and video game manufacturers — have not dented the production of such nihilistic fare. Plaintiff lawyers must keep trying. Remember, it took a while to bag Big Tobacco, too.

• Finally, what about the wall-to-wall news coverage of such events? It’s become clear to criminal justice experts that some sort of grim competition exists with these killers. Covering their crimes — covering the news — is not the same thing as producing mindlessly violent video games and is certainly protected by the First Amendment. Yet not everything that the news media can do is something it should do. Food for thought, colleagues.

Carl M. Cannon is executive editor and Washington Bureau chief of RealClearPolitics.

More than  6,000 people marched through and around Angel Stadium to raise funds and awareness for Alzheimer’s Orange County in the annual Walk4ALZ fundraiser at Angel Stadium in Anaheim on Saturday Nov. 11, 2017.

The crowd raised over $500,000 during their biggest fundraising event of the year.

Donald Lutz, a 38-year-old Marine Corps veteran from Lake Forest, walked with an American Flag painted over his right eye. He was walking for his grandmother, who he lost six years ago to Alzheimer’s. “We’re gonna make a difference”, said Lutz, surrounded by family and friends, all brought together by a disease that takes so much.

It indeed is a small world after all.

Having grown up in Japan, I recently volunteered to interview a delegation of young political leaders from Japan visiting Southern California.

When I received a list of the delegates’ names, I was more than surprised. On there was Takahisa Oda, my close childhood friend, with whom I had walked to school every day. Our homes were about 100 yards apart. He is now a councilman of our hometown, the city of Sagamihara, on the outskirts of Tokyo.

On Oct. 31, we reunited, 5,500 miles away from our hometown in a hotel lobby in Orange, as a U.S. journalist and a Japanese politician. There was no way we, or anyone, could have imagined that such a day would come, and I couldn’t help but feel proud of our careers.

Takahisa was among six Japanese officials tapped by their respective political parties to establish connections with and learn about the U.S. through an exchange program between the two countries, just before President Trump’s visit to Asia. These up-and-comers, 40 years and younger, are expected to lead Japan in the future.

I asked them what they thought about the U.S. and its relationships with Japan.

The delegation first stopped in Washington, D.C. during their 10-day stay, which had been cut short because of a snap election in Japan. There, they visited the U.S. Department of State and the Democratic National Committee while also learning about political lobbying.

“I was relieved to find out State Department officials know very well about Japan,” said Koichiro Yorimitsu, a member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the Kochi Prefectural Assembly.

Despite what happened in World War II, most Japanese and the country as a whole consider the United States to be a key partner. And that partnership is more important to Japan than ever, as North Korea develops its missile systems. A big debate in Japan is whether the country should amend its pacifist constitution and beef up the military.

Although we hear news about Kim Jong-un’s threats to attack the United States, most of us here, even on the West Coast, don’t think much about it in our everyday lives. The fear, however, is real in Japan.

Whenever North Korea launches a ballistic missile that flies over Japan, people receive a government warning, known as the J-Alert, on loudspeakers, TV and cell phones. Imagine all the cell phones beeping simultaneously on infamously packed trains in Tokyo, like they did across Orange County during a recent wildfire.

Residents in Sagamihara, my hometown, are especially worried, Takahisa said, because it has a U.S. military base, which they think could become a target.

“I hope that America is on the same page as Japan, sharing the goal of disarming North Korea of nuclear weapons,” said Toru Kawabata, the chief of Chugoku Branch for the Komei Press, a media organization of the Komeito Party.

The delegation came to Orange County last week, meeting county and state politicians, getting a tour of Orange County Water District’s groundwater replenishment system and visiting Richard Nixon Library and UC Irvine.

Rieko Fukuda, a Liberal Democratic Party member of the Shunan City Council, said she was inspired to see women, such as board supervisors Michelle Steel and Lisa Bartlett, both of whom are Asian, serving as top-ranking officials. It’s still rare to see women in politics in Japan, particularly at the local level, she said.

La Palma City Councilman Peter Kim served as the delegation’s host in Orange County. Kim, 33, traveled to China and Taiwan in 2014 through a similar exchange program by the American Council of Young Political Leaders, whose local alumni include Congressmen Ed Royce and Dana Rohrabacher.

“It was great to meet young political leaders from both countries,” Kim said, reflecting on his 2014 trip. “A lot of our alum are now in the federal government and they are able to leverage those relationships.”

Kawabata agrees.

“An exchange program like this may not have an immediate effect,” he said. “But I believe that an accumulation of such experiences will lead to an even stronger U.S.-Japan relationship.”

One thing they want the Americans to know, delegates said, is how much the Japanese love the United States.

It’s not hard to sense that affinity, or even admiration, when you see the abundance of American retailers and restaurants in Tokyo, where people proudly wear New York and Los Angeles caps and T-shirts as fashion.

Their interest in the United States appears to have grown after Donald Trump was elected as president. Japanese media have reached out to me to write and talk about how Americans feel about this past presidential election and how they view Japan.

“It’s probably the foreign country we feel closest to,” said Kawabata, who lives in Hiroshima, where the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb. “Japan and the U.S. have overcome some conflicts, such as trade frictions, to build a strong relationship.”

Takahisa said he was impressed by global perspectives held by many top-ranking officials he met during the trip. That experience has taught him to think about domestic issues from a broader point of view even at the city level, he said.

“I was only thinking about Sagamihara’s education only within a domestic context, but I should also compare our system to that of the U.S., China, Korea and other countries,” he said.

As a journalist, I hope to do the same. While the world is a small place, it also is huge, full of things waiting to be discovered.

I cannot wait to meet Takahisa again one day, and hope that by then we will have both contributed to making this world a better place.

SACRAMENTO — There are few areas of private life that California’s legislators won’t at least attempt to meddle, which makes it that much more infuriating when the Capitol crowd can’t get its own house in order. I’m thinking, of course, about the unfolding sexual-harassment scandal, and lawmakers’ amazing efforts to basically look the other way.

Nothing to see here, just keep moving on. Maybe, by the time lawmakers get back to work in January, the whole mess will be off the news pages. Then they can go back to doing what they do best — regulating and hectoring the rest of us. But, for now, the rest of us can at least learn some stellar lessons about political hypocrisy.

One key lesson is that a lawmakers’ publicly stated positions and posturing have little to do with how they might handle any particular scandal.

The latest evidence of this comes from KPIX-TV in the Bay Area, which reported that Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, “is a vocal supporter of women’s rights, so her silence on the matter of Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra’s sexual harassment case is surprising.” But “this isn’t the first time she’s been silent when it comes to sexual harassment” and that particular San Fernando Valley Assembly member, according to the news report.

Last month, a longtime legislative staffer, Elise Flynn Gyore, told the Sacramento Bee that in 2009 then-staffer Bocanegra followed her like “prey” at a nightclub and unexpectedly “put his hands up my blouse and down my blouse and was grabbing me.” The Assembly Rules investigation found it “more likely than not that Mr. Bocanegra engaged in behavior that night which does not meet the Assembly’s expectations for professionalism.”

Bocanegra was disciplined, but the matter was brushed under the rug. Per the TV station, Bocanegra ran for his seat with the backing of the Democratic Party. He recently apologized but remains the powerful majority whip. KPIX obtained a copy of a letter 11 women sent to the rules committee seeking the file on the sexual-harassment complaint. Skinner was the chairwoman of the committee, and the TV station interviewed one of the letter’s signers “who confirmed, Nancy Skinner never responded to their request.”

This might not be as hypocritical as when, say, former Sen. Leland Yee, a San Francisco Democrat known for his strident gun-control positions, was arrested on corruption and gun-trafficking allegations after an undercover operation in that city’s Chinatown that was worthy of a Hollywood movie. But it’s close.

That leads to another lesson: Any new rules apply to us, not them.

You’ll hear hyperbolic rhetoric on the Assembly and Senate floors warning about the crisis du jour, such as a wave of sexual abuse on college campuses. In 2014, the governor signed a “yes means yes” law that “requires affirmative consent — affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity — throughout the encounter, removing ambiguity for both parties,” according to its authors.

I’m certainly not downplaying campus assaults, but there’s far less of a zeal to do anything about the cascading evidence of deep, cultural problems regarding sexual harassment within the Capitol. Some scandals apparently are more worthy of action than others.

Gyore spoke out following publication of an open letter from 140 influential women — including six sitting lawmakers — complaining that many men in the Capitol “leveraged their power and positions to treat us however they would like.” Why didn’t they speak out? They didn’t want to make waves given that these men often “hold our professional fates in their hands.” They detailed an ugly culture in a state that “postures itself as a leader in justice and equality.”

Those are stinging allegations, backed up by reports that the Legislature quietly paid out $850,000 in taxpayer-funded harassment settlements over the past couple decades. The California Legislative Women’s Caucus issued a statement noting that “the absence of repercussions is yet another example of the pervasive culture of sexual harassment within California politics.” So much for this being a fuss about isolated examples.

Everyone deserves due process, of course. Yet this year the Legislature passed a bill that, as the Atlantic summarized it, “would have broadened the definitions and rules regarding alleged sexual misconduct for students attending California colleges and universities.” It was an effort to reinstate portions of an Obama-era edict that were gutted by the Trump administration.

Brown’s unusually long veto message explained that some anti-harassment policies may “have also unintentionally resulted in some colleges’ failure to uphold due process for accused students.” Now that the Capitol is awash in accusations, we might expect newfound concern about due process — once the leadership gets around to seriously addressing the unfolding scandal.

Or look for new calls for better “training,” which is how the Senate responded after three of its members faced criminal charges. Sure, finding hypocrisy among lawmakers is as surprising as finding waste in the bureaucracy, but it’s shocking nonetheless.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. He was a Register editorial writer from 1998 to 2009. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

As Morrissey walked on stage for an encore, the English singer, whose mouth and motives at times overshadow his music, he offered a wryly self-deprecating gesture of appreciation to the 17,000 or so who packed the Hollywood Bowl on Friday for the first of two sold-out shows there.

“California Republic, I hope I have lived up to my appalling reputation,” he said, hands in pockets of the shiny gold jacket into which he’d changed while off stage for a moment.

The crowd cheered loudly, many laughing, because with Morrissey, well, you never know. He canceled his previous show – an unfortunately uncommon practice for him – in Paso Robles on Sunday because it was too cold, the slaughterhouse videos he insists on showing during the song “Meat Is Murder” remain as gruesomely difficult to watch as ever, and he’s never, ever shy about sharing his views on politics and society.

But this was Morrissey Day — he’d received a proclamation from the Los Angeles City Council before the show stating it so – the 58-year-old singer arrived on stage in fine form and good humor, delivering a strong show of 22 songs over an hour and 40 minutes on a chilly night in L.A., a city where he’s long been adored.

The show opened with an Elvis cover, “You’ll Be Gone,” and “I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish,” the first of four songs in his set from the Smiths, the influential group in which Morrissey first found fame.

As a songwriter, his lyrics mine the personal and political, love and loathing, the artist as a world-weary chronicler of modern life. At the Hollywood Bowl on Friday he introduced new takes on those timeless themes, playing seven of the 12 tracks from his 11th studio album, “Low In High School.”

“I Wish You Lonely” and “Jacky’s Only Happy When She’s Up On The Stage” showed up early in the set off the album that arrives on Friday, his first in three years. While the new songs are strong, and were warmly received by the crowd, it’s only natural that the biggest responses came to the best-known and loved songs from his catalog.

“How Soon Is Now,” one of the Smiths’ biggest numbers, was a standout of the first half of the show, red lights pulsing on the rings of the band shell, white strobes blasting from behind the band as the throbbing guitars roared behind Morrissey’s vocal.

By comparison, the new single, “Spent The Day In Bed,” which followed felt lighter, an almost charming ode to turning off the news – “Because the news contrives to frighten you,” he sang – and hiding in a cocoon of sheets and pillow and safety.

Highlights of the back half of the show included the new tune “My Love, I’d Do Anything For You,” a cover of the Pretenders’ “Back On The Chain Gang,” and the slightly sinister feel of “Speedway.”

“Meat Is Murder” is an admirable sentiment – Morrissey’s dedication to animal rights is unquestioned, and the Bowl food vendors agreed to go vegetarian for both his shows there – but the slaughterhouse clips he insists on showing are truly hard to take. (That said, the guy who shouted a few obscenities at Morrissey at the close of that bit must not have known a thing about the artist he was seeing.)

The main set wrapped up with the always lovely “Everyday Is Like Sunday,” the crowd singing loudly on the choruses, while the encore offered up a pair of classics, “Suedehead” and the Smiths’ “Shoplifters Of The World Unite,” at the end which Morrissey took of his jacket, threw it into the crowd and walked off stage bare-chested under the 55-degree night skies.

Which is also, coincidentally enough, how Billy Idol wrapped up his opening set -– shirtless – after a fun 50 minutes of his music. “Dancing With Myself” took things back to Idol’s start in Generation X but most of the set was drawn from his commercial peak in the early ’80s: the big ballads of “Flesh For Fantasy” and “Eyes Without A Face,” and, of course, the huge sing-along classics such as “Rebel Yell” and “White Wedding.

Morrissey

When: Friday, Nov. 10, with a second show on Saturday, Nov. 11

Where: Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles

When the Rams last saw the Coliseum in early October, the carry-over skepticism from their woeful 4-12 record in 2016 still lingered ominously in Los Angeles.

The Rams distributed 60,745 tickets to their game against the Seattle Seahawks five weeks ago, of which 55,000 were probably used. Not a terrible crowd in the whole scheme of the NFL, but certainly not where the Rams hoped to be their second season back in L.A.

It was understandable given the horrific product the Rams fielded last year. After anxiously waiting 21 years to finally get the NFL back – and their very own Rams to boot – much of Los Angeles took one look at the hot mess Jeff Fisher ran out onto the field last year and declared: “Oh hell no.”

Check back with me when you have a good team, many said, choosing instead to watch from home rather than pay big money to support a bad product.

Others promised they’d come out when the new stadium in Inglewood opens in 2020, turned off by the game-day experience of the 92-year-old Coliseum.

Provided the Rams had improved the product, of course.

And who could blame them?

“This is L.A., you have to show a little more for them to really come out and support,” Rams defensive tackle Michael Brockers.

Added linebacker Alec Ogletree: “This is a production league. Fans want to see you win. They want to support a winning team. That’s just the expectation out here.”

The Rams fell woefully short on those expectations last year. And it cost them.

But that was then, this is now.

And it’s on L.A. to now respond accordingly. The way any city would for a team as good as the Rams are right now.

They triumphantly return home on Sunday after sweeping a three-game swing outside of Los Angeles that pushed their record to 6-2 – their best start since 2001 – and alone in first place in the NFC West.

By every measure, they are an exciting, compelling powerhouse. A team any fanbase in the NFL would happily embrace.

But especially Los Angeles, which historically opens its hearts and arms to the kind pizazz and dazzle and charisma the Rams now offer.

They have the best offense in the NFL – pummeling opponents to the tune of 32.9 points per game. They have one of the best young quarterbacks in the game  in Jared Goff, who has silenced his first-year critics by throwing for 2,030 yards and 13 touchdowns while completing  60.2 percent of his passes.

And he’s operating in an offensive system composed by hotshot young coach Sean McVay, who in nine short months has emerged as one of the most impressive coaches to come down the pike in years.

Todd Gurley has re-established himself as one of the best running backs in the league. The wide receiver group of Sammy Watkins, Robert Woods and Cooper Kupp is deep and versatile and explosive.

The defense is giving up just 19.4 points per game, tied for ninth-best in the NFL.

The special teams unit is the best in the NFL.

Take a good, honest look around the NFL. Does anyone have all their bases covered as well as the Rams, who are among the best offensively, defensively, special teams and on the coaching sideline?

It’s amazing, really.

In one one the great transformations in NFL history, the Rams have done almost the unthinkable.

From the depths of football purgatory they’ve risen up as legitimate Super Bowl contenders.

Now it’s on L.A. to provide the backing they deserve.

The Rams set their Coliseum capacity at 65,000 this year – with some wiggle room to go to 70,000. It was their response to the logistical difficulties of comfortably accommodating the 80,000 to 90,000 that packed the 93-year-old stadium last year.

As well as the Rams are playing – and the high stakes involved over the next eight weeks – there is no reason all 65,000 tickets shouldn’t be gobbled up and used.

That would be the case in any market in the NFL.

You’d think it would be the case in L.A.

The Rams hope it is.

But it’s a guarded optimism.

“I’m expecting the fans that are always there to be there,” Brockers said. “But I’m not really expecting anything more.”

And why is that?

“We really haven’t been too good (over the years),” he said candidly.

Brockers has been with the Rams since 2012. Coming into this season the overall record over that period was 31-48-1. That’s not exactly a persuasive argument to make to any fanbase.

“And I think that’s the case with any team,” Brockers said. “When your team isn’t doing very good you’re not going to have as many followers.”

Let alone in the notoriously fickle Los Angeles, which the Rams abandoned for more than two decades while calling St. Louis home.

Only to come back last year and take a complete nosedive fielding one of the worst teams in the NFL.

“You have to win games to get fans to come. They want to see a winning team. And that’s on us,” said Ogletree.

Eight games in, mission accomplished. The Rams have made a riveting case for themselves as a must-see product.

You’d think it’s enough to grab the attention of greater Los Angeles and create a powerful home field advantage as they make their second half playoff push.

You’d think, anyway.

“We’ve got to just continue to focus on trying to deliver a good product to this city and hopefully the fans will come up and support us,” said McVay.

The Rams have done their part.

Now it’s on L.A. to respond accordingly.

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