Knock out teen violence

                             When I was a young teenager way back when ------ this was sometime after widespread use of the Conestoga wagon and before the iPad ----- my friends and I would occasionally get into mischief.
                             We'd ring a neighbor's front door bell, hide behind a parked car or around the corner and watch the homeowner's confusion as they peeked out the door wondering who rang the bell.  During Halloween, we'd walk the neighborhood and rub bars of soap on car windows.  (We discontinued this practice when one of our less-savvy friends nearly got a beating after soaping the window of a parked car with the driver possessing butcher's forearms still inside.)
                            Sometimes, we'd phone a pizzeria and order multiple trays to be delivered to a particular address.  Then we'd hide and watch as the resident and the delivery man argued it out on the front porch.  This was the type of mild hi-jinx in which kids could engage before the advent of caller ID.  All of it was harmless fun.
                            But today, what some teenagers are doing throughout America and under the guise of fun is anything but.
                            By now, you've surely heard about what's commonly referred to as Knockout, a sick, senseless act in which teens randomly sucker-punch strangers with the intention of knocking them unconscious with one punch.  The teens are engaging in a warped competition to see who can be the first of the group to knock a person out cold.
                            Some media outlets have referred to the violent act as the "Knockout Game".  But when an unsuspecting man or woman, perhaps some who are elderly or infirm, is punched in the face by a teenager, a game it is not.
                            It's hard for a rational person to fathom how someone walks up to another, balls up a fist, reaches back from the hip and punches someone with the intent of rendering them unconscious for no reason other than self-satisfaction.
                            The experts believe they know why.
                            "We know from brain studies that the part of a young person's brain that gets fired up through excitement and thrill-seeking actually develops and fires up more quickly than the other part of the brain," wrote Jeffrey Butts, who specializes in youth criminal justice at John Jay College in New York City.  "The other part of the brain, which controls judgment and discretion, comes along a few years later.
                            "(Knockout) victims are someone who the young people consider to be an 'other'.  That could be a racial difference, it could just be a class difference.  It's not about toughness.  It's about proving their manhood to their friends.  But what they end up doing is proving that they're still children."
                            Is Knockout an epidemic, as some have suggested?  Is it a trend?  A national problem?  Or as others have suggested, it just may be a microscopic percentage of mindless teens acting out as teens have done since time began.
                           Some call this random act of assault by other names.  Some call it Point' Em Out, Knock' Em Out or Knock' Em and Drop' Em.  Whatever it's called, it's nothing new.  As far back as the 1980s, it was called One-Hitter Quitter, as in "one hit and the person quits being conscious."  In Europe in the 2000s, it was called Happy Slapping.  Whatever it's called, it brings to mind "A Clockwork Orange," the 1971 motion picture about a violent gang of teenagers in futuristic Great Britain.  Whatever it's called, it can't stop soon enough.
                          My advice to those misguided teens:  Go ring a door bell.