It's a too-common occurrence: children dying in school at the whim of a gunman. Families are torn apart, communities are sent into a panic, and there is a finger trembling to point at that which is to blame. With people sent into graves before their time, closure is desired. Where is it going to come from?
Why do these kids think a gun is the answer? I was picked on with reckless abandon when I was a lot younger. My dad had a gun. I knew it was there and I knew how to use it. But I never shot anyone. What would it have accomplished? One of the reasons I was picked on was because of my lankiness. There's no way I could have evaded anyone. I would have been caught. Maybe I just had more common sense then than these kids do now.
It's hard to decide where the problem begins. The chicken or the egg.
It's a safe wager that a vast majority of these perpetrators claim they were "picked on" or "in the out crowd" or "ignored". They were made miserable by people in a more prominent clique. They wore the wrong clothes or the wrong shoes or their family was from the wrong background or they practiced a left-wing religion or whatever reason you can think of. Agree with me or not, kids in middle school and high school can be as cruel as anything. Yeah, I'm a liberal baby, but come on, this shouldn't be a "rite of passage" for anyone.
And at the same time, no matter how crappy people make you feel, you shouldn't go around shooting them. You're guaranteed to be treated like dirt after you're caught. If you think about it, the gunman is just becoming that which treated him/her so poorly before. The latest perpetrator at Santana High School in San Diego claimed he was going to "out-do Columbine." Doesn't that sound like something an egotistical testosterone-brain would say? You might as well be fighting over the size of your pickup truck in the locker room.
Maybe these people are looking for attention. Well, they got it. On more than one occasion my high school was seething with rumors of a "hit list." Out of a small school of 400 students, about half didn't come to school those days. No one ever found out who started those lists, but no gunman ever came. Think how much attention such a conspirator would get if his/her conspiracies were enacted. Look at all the coverage the Santana trial is getting on television, on the internet, in magazines, even on AM radio. The whole world is watching these kids. But not with the sympathetic eye they would like.
I won't bother with the "just ignore it" or "walk away" advice. It doesn't work. If you're looking for a solution, my fellow bully-victims, you talk to those in charge. Yeah, you may feel like a dork talking to the even-more dorky assistant principal, but I overcame image concerns (which were the primary concerns of the bullies) and talked to my principal about the people who were treating me terribly. They were threatened with suspension and had to apologize to me in front of the principal. They left me alone. It felt good. I didn't become one of them. The kid in San Diego did.
And at the same time, bullying isn't funny, it isn't cute, and it damn sure isn't right. It is a sad world where someone is hated because that person is not understood. You'd think with human evolution, our brains might evolve, but no. We still only use ten percent of its power. Compassion shouldn't be a chore. Will common sense come when we can harness 11 percent?
Some people look to a third party for blame. Art. Marilyn Manson, Ozzy Osbourne, video games, you name it. Anything that speaks out against a 1950s fantasy life is often used as a scapegoat. "Those kids listening to that devil music are the scum of this country." Whatever. There are so many people who would rather say "Marilyn Manson drove my son to kill five people and himself" than "my son had a problem." Such comments are right up there with "it can't happen here."
Is it politics? In a combined total of 25 industrialized nations, 124 gun deaths occurred in the last year. America wasn't among that group. America had 32,000 gun deaths in the last year. Wanna know what the difference was? America, compared with the other nations, has disgraceful gun control laws. Yes, people kill people, but you'd be an idiot to say that a gun didn't make it a lot easier. Politicians pining for tougher gun laws aren't trying to take your guns away, and that's good, because there are many responsible gun owners in this nation and in this world. But, please, tell me how safe you feel surrounded by weapons.
I hope you weren't expecting me to offer a solution for this plague. All I can say is wake up. We haven't used our brains enough to raise a finger to point with. This is no right-wing conspiracy, this is not just the "Goths" going for revenge on those who had oppressed them. This isn't just about the suits on Capitol Hill. There's something bigger going on here. Perhaps it's humanity. Perhaps everything here is wrong. We can complain, yes. But where else are we going to live?
I don't know. I just don't know.
Name: Blitz... Krieg? Comments: Name: Amanda Name: norm
"Whatever happened to 'crazy'?"
Name: EO
Year: soph
Major: Media Studies
Comments:
I cannot give an answer to why these kids are doing what they are doing. It could be the media, it could be the parents, and it could be all the people who look the other way. But it is problem, and it is getting worse. Wanting to “out do” another violent act is just an example of how inconsiderate, uncompassionate and desensitized our society has become. If a child knows how to load a gun, (which I as an 18 year old college student, have never done), bring it to school, and shoot it off, shouldn’t that child also know that people will get hurt and maybe die. All the pain suffered from teasing and being an outcast is not nearly as tremendous as the grief felt by parents, friends, peers and the nation after an event such as what has taken place in Columbine or Santana.
Parents and children need to have communication. Not only about what goes on at school or what the kid watches on television, but more importantly about what the child thinks and feels about what is going on at school and what was seen on the television. Expression of feelings and ideas is crucial to a child’s development.
Information is easy to come by. Type in a few words on a computer and you can get a whole list of sites abundant with information. Turn on the tube and channel surf for 15 minutes and a wide variety of images and comments will flow right in front of you. Just walk down the street and you will see things you don’t understand. We, as adults see these things as easily as children, but because we are adults we should take the opportunity to explain the circumstances, the consequences and the morals of such actions and events to children.
Simply taking the time to ask a child about what they feel could have enormous effects. It can make the child feel intelligent and important. Just allowing a child the opportunity to vent out what the child feels, which is most likely a misinterpretation of something seen or heard, could prevent such disasters that are all too common in our society today.
Parents take part in your child’s life, not only as a provider of food and shelter, but also for love, compassion and understanding. Would you be willing to suffer the death of your child or sibling or friend as the result of a parent’s neglect, I would hope not.
Comments:
I say we send the kids with guns to the "tossed salad man" ...
But on a serious note, this is a problem that has been around for years... Maybe it's time we click the news off and send psychologists to schools. If there's no reason for it... then the future is only gonna get worse...
he said "whim" in the first paragraph..isn't that a sin? Hey, wait. I rhymed. Kick ass.
Comments:
Great article...:)
Comments:
It's like Chris Rock said: