The safety of children and youth
in their schools has been much in the news over the past six weeks since the
last school massacre. Leftists quickly used the tragedy to push for gun
control. They seem to believe that more gun control laws will stop the very
people who ignore the current laws. They sing only one refrain – gun control.
Other people are wiser and realize
that evil is to blame for school massacres – not guns. They are the ones who
are seeking other ways to bring safety to the schools. John G. Malcolm and Amy Swearer from The Heritage Foundation think that looking for common traits in the killers would be a good place
to start. They remind us that twenty years have passed since the tragedy at
Columbine High School in Colorado. Since basically nothing has been done during
those years to stop murders at school, it is “time to get serious about school
safety.”
The fact that nothing has been done to
stop the violence is one of the problems that is triggering anger in the rising
generation. Anger is driving the students, but it is also allowing them to be
used as pawns in the hands of the gun control movement. Students should not
only be safe in their schools, but they should also be safe from being used by
adults to further their evil and unconstitutional agendas.
Malcolm and Swearer say that “we
need to focus on a range of pressing issues – including mental health, family
breakdown, culture, media, and more” because our “children and grandchildren
deserve to be safe at school.” However, we must be “ready to get serious about
school safety” before we can accomplish it. As long as leftists are driving the
national discussion and focusing on gun control, the conversation will continue
to be about gun control and never include anything else.
The authors say that the school
killers “are significantly more likely than the average population to suffer
from undiagnosed or untreated mental illness; they often come from broken
homes; and their shootings may be related to economic insecurity.” The rest of
the article discusses these three factors. The article concludes with these
paragraphs.
Real solutions to problems start with
facts, and the fact is that school shooters often share the same traits –
traits that are not connected to or related to guns.
If we are going to get serious about
school safety, we must soberly acknowledge the fact that mental illness, broken
families, and economic insecurity all play a role in many, if not most, school
shootings.
Addressing those societal ills, with
proven strategies will help reduce not only school shootings, but other violent
acts by at-risk youth.
If we are serious about school
safety, we must eliminate the talk about gun control and start discussing the
real issues in the lives of young people who choose to kill their peers. We
should be searching for reasons why there are so many mentally disturbed young
people.
Is this instability caused by the
breakdown in families, or is it a result of drugs, violent video games, etc. If
it is the breakdown in the family, what are we personally willing to do about
strengthening families? If it is the result of violent video games or violent
media in other forms, what are we personally willing to do to eliminate that
media from our lives? If the rising generation felt more secure in their home
lives and were not under the influence of violent media, maybe there would not
be so much mental illness among the group!
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