Photo: Simon Howden
It has happened again. Another school shooting has ended young lives and scarred many others. The juvenile, who has been apprehended in connection to the shootings, has become the subject of intense scrutiny as media, psychologists, and worried parents try to discern a pattern.
A pattern would convince us that this was someone’s mistake, that someone missed the warning signals that led to the massacre. In this case, some of those signals had been caught. The accused had been flagged as a troubled youth and was already attending a school for at risk individuals. He came from a turbulent home. Both parents had been prosecuted for acts of domestic violence.
This youth, already at risk due to an unstable home life, had access to a firearm. Together, these factors set up a perfect storm for a disenfranchised youth to release his feelings of frustration on other young people.
Not all individuals who commit these violent acts fit into a pattern. Yet there are some commonalities that are important to consider when grappling with the nationwide problem of school shootings. The many complex societal issues that contribute to youth-on-youth violence call for more of a national dialogue on how we as a nation can move to change society so that either those factors are mitigated, or the youths at risk receive support so that the outcome of their struggles is not bloodshed. Arguably, two of the low hanging fruits to tackle this problem are a sustained, national effort to counteract bullying and a widespread, radical change in the way that fire arms are made accessible to children.
On the first of the two, we are starting to witness a broadening awareness. Lady Gaga has embraced the cause to end bullying and foster communities of kindness. Her initiative is important, not only because it targets a need the country clearly has, but also because her stature as a popular icon will hopefully spread the message more effectively than recommendations from governmental organizations. An organized and standard curriculum for teaching empathy, from the very earliest stages of childhood education, should strengthen the lessons children receive at home, if they are indeed fortunate enough to have parents who teach this all important, basic skill, or to present the lesson to children who are at risk due to chaotic home lives.
The second issue seems so simple that it is shameful that we have not yet done it. While we can shop, browse the internet, photograph, play and talk on our smart phones, as of yet, we do not have widespread access to childproof guns. It bears consideration: what kind of society are we that prioritizes technologies to keep us entertained while the possibility exists that a troubled youth can, without too much effort, have access to a firearm? Why would anyone give their child access to an assault rifle? Let us hold parents accountable for their reckless empowerment that may support violent tendencies!
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About Maitri Pamo
Children have access to many instruments that can be used to inflict punishment on others. I was reading last week about an incident at a Chicago school in which on student was stabbed to death, another injured. How about children having access to knives? http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/2-Students-Stabbed-by-Fellow-Student-Cops-141025573.html?2
haha, Lee, you’re so naive. Your conservativism pollutes your mind so much that you actually think that guns have any sort of equivalent that could inflict the same amount of random and instantaneous damage. Typical conservative…living on another planet far away from Reality.
If the issue is violence, then one must accept the fact that people have plenty of ways to inflict physical pain or lethal pain upon another. Whether that pain is inflicted through the use of a firearm, a knife, a baton, a bat, brass knuckles, mace or pepper spray, poison, fire, a vehicle or a ball, as well as with ones own legs, arms or head, pain is pain, and extreme pain can result in death.
Cyrena: As the old saying goes: Calling me naive is like the pot calling the kettle black.
Yeah Cyrena like the news story last month in Kansas City when a white child Allen Coon was set on fire by two black students because he spoke up to a Black teacher that reprimanded him by saying “your not our race” when he tried to answer a question relating to Black History Month. So stop blaming conservatives.
I would think the Latino children that carry the guns are not going to be leaning towards any Republican and conservative ideas. I bet they are going to lean more towards the Obama camp.
Mario: She doesn’t know what she talks/writes about. It’s just mindless drivel bordering on the inanities.
Mario: That was a sickening act, and I pray those two thugs get apprehended and sent to prison forever.