My emotions are as low today as ever I can remember as I work through the tragic news of Newtown, Connecticut.

Another slaughter of innocent lives, this time little children, at the hands of a youth with guns, ammo, a damaged mind and a confused soul.

For me this isn’t like Sept. 11. Then I was angry; someone from some faraway land was going to have to shoulder the blame and pay for what they did to us.

Today, I simply feel lost, because we are the ones who must shoulder the blame for what happened, and begin paying back.

— 1998: 13- and 11-year-old kill five, injure 10 at Jonesboro, Ark., middle school

— 1999: 18-year-olds kill 13, injure 24 at Columbine High School, Littleton, Colo

— 2001: 15-year-old kills two, injures 13, Santee, Calif., high school

— 2005: 16-year-old kills nine, injures seven, Red Lake indian reservation, Minnesota

— 2006: 32-year-old kills five, injures five, Amish high school in Nickel Mines, Pa.

— 2007: 18-year-old kills five, injures four, Salt Lake City, Utah shopping mall

— 2007: 23-year-old kills 32, injures 17 at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va.

— 2007: 19-year-old kills eight, injures 14, Omaha, Neb., shopping mall

— 2008: 27-year-old kills five, injures 16, DeKalb, Ill., university lecture hall

— 2010: 34-year-old kills eight, injures two, Manchester, Conn., family business office

— 2011: 22-year-old kills six, injures 11, Tucson, Ariz., shopping center

— 2012: 24-year-old kills 12, injures 58, Aurora, Colo., movie theater

— 2012: 40-year-old kills six, injures three, Oak Creek, Wisc., Sikh temple

— 2012: 22-year-old kills two, Clackamas, Ore., shopping mall

— 2012: 20-year-old kills 28, including 20 children at an elementary school, in Newtown, Conn.

What exactly has happened to our society where a list like this is so overwhelming; further punctuated by the thousands of nameless inner city and gangland murders perpetrated by our youth that are not considered rampage killings?

Laying it at the feet of some psychological disorder diagnosis housed in the mind of the gunman is pure intellectual cowardice. The only thing that does is allow the rest of us to feel better, because it becomes someone else’s problem — another family’s responsibility.

Americans would do well to acknowledge the insidious decay in our cultural values where they continue to collide with what many interpret as their own set of personal freedoms.

Freedoms are great, but become worthless and detrimental to society as a whole if they are not exercised with maturity, restraint and responsibility. We seem to have lost sight of all three of these requirements.

Personal and moral failures at any level don’t carry the negative stigma they once did. Breaking society’s laws — even those little, seemingly inconsequential ones — means nothing anymore and is routinely modeled by parents to their young ones. Breaking little rules leads to breaking larger norms as one gets older.

The end result is a perpetual diminishing of cultural values. At the end of the day, what value does a human life have?

Even as a constitutional originalist and Second Amendment supporter, I believe rational gun control has become necessary. In this debate, we must recognize that guns have evolved greatly since 1791. It doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing proposition that neuters the NRA, our Bill of Rights or the American hunting tradition. But it does have to somehow find a way to keep us from lamenting that victims were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

It is high time for our judicial system to do its job with a little less compassion and much heavier hand.

Our culture has lost its fear of the consequences of breaking societal rules. Gen X and the Millenials have become the No Fear generation. Minds that consider crime no longer consider the consequences that go with it because plea deals, suspended and reduced sentences, and early parole mitigate a criminal’s uncomfortable future.

Cable television’s offerings even depict a macho glorification of penal life that has found a twisted audience in our society that actually aspires to doing time.

Our society must put fear back into a criminal’s mind. In our present light, there comes with it a desire to dismantle the death penalty, buy some islands, clean out the prisons and remove twostrike criminals from society, forever. Compassionate, yet final. Bad actors shouldn’t be allowed to have three strikes.

What effect did Hollywood, video games and the Internet play in the minds of the 16 killers previously listed? My guess is pretty significant. What are we, as a culture, allowing the next generation to be exposed to that exploits their immaturity and underdeveloped moral sense?

My guess is that in the immediate days following the Newtown massacre, most Americans would welcome such a review and find it easy to connect the dots.

Sadly, the short attention span of Americans has shown this too, shall pass. And our culture will continue to slide as we await the next horrific homegrown event.

December 14 was a tough day for me. My heart breaks for the families in Newtown. But my angst really comes from seeing that America, the shining city on a hill, is losing its sheen; and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

SCOTT RUPPERT lives in Harpswell and is a freelance writer.