Students killed; let?s do nothing

I?m not comfortable allowing our children to be sent off to school to be slaughtered.

But apparently some people are. That?s the only way I can explain the lack of any meaningful action following another school year filled with campus shootings that was punctuated by the Virginia Tech massacre.

School violence is certainly a topic with no easy answers. My beef is we seem to have given up looking for solutions.

When over 600 students miss school and another 400 leave early because of a gun threat at Warren County High School, it?s a sign there?s a problem. This isn?t a hidden message that?s difficult to see. It?s a billboard that shouts ?Our children are getting murdered at school and they?re scared.?

Since Columbine eight years ago, this country has done nothing of any significance to deter gun violence. That?s humiliating.

Banning guns certainly isn?t the answer. There were guns when I was in public schools nearly 20 years ago and no one was shot to death in class.

But trying to rationalize reasons why this country shouldn?t consider sweeping changes isn?t fair to our children. It?s not fair to my two children who still have their entire public school careers in front of them.

That said, here are some thoughts:

Gun enthusiasts are quick to say, ?It?s not guns that kill people, it?s people who kill people,? a statement that?s half true at best. To me, that statement is a cop-out. It suggests guns have no part in the equation, which is absurd.

Students aren?t getting stabbed to death. They aren?t getting beaten to death. They are getting shot to death ? by guns.

But guns themselves are not solely to blame. As the other side of the famous phrase goes, ?people kill people.? The underlying question is why do people murder students today when it was unheard of just 20 years ago? When I was in school in the 1970s and ?80s, I never once thought about a student bringing a gun and opening fire. What has changed?

For starters we want to medicate every kid who has a bad day. Then we subject these sponge-like minds to hours of TV and movie violence. If that?s not enough, we saturate teens with blood-filled video games and then try to convince ourselves little Billy won?t be aggressive with firearms.

While this column may be long on observations and short on solutions, in the words of John Kerry, ?I have a plan.? We didn?t get to this point in a year and no single act of Congress is going to make us step back in time to the days of murder-free school zones.

What our nation?s leaders should consider is a 20-year plan to gradually ease graphic violence from every aspect of our society and tighten our accessibility to guns. Note: I?m by no means suggesting a ban on guns. Rather I firmly believe it should be more difficult for kids to buy a gun than to buy chips and a cold drink. Like it or not, there should be more gun restrictions.

Most of all, over a period of years, Americans are going to have to let go of our thirst for violence. If nothing else, these school shootings are an accurate reflection of our society, which drips with violence.

Some goals to work toward:

Gunmakers should be forced to scale back production. Government is doing it to tobacco companies and guns are a close rival to cigarettes in terms of health hazards.

We must give up our 24-hour cycle of seemingly never-ending violence and tone down the violent content of movies and TV shows.

And we have to put an end to song lyrics that encourage youngsters to murder. Free speech doesn?t mean you can yell ?fire? in a crowded theater.

No one can say we don?t have a gun problem in our schools. What I can?t understand is why we aren?t working harder for answers.

James Clark is editor of the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191.