DADI.org

by Ollie North

WASHINGTON -- "How can this happen here?" That's the question that people in Littleton, Colorado have been asking since noon on April 20th. It's the same question that parents in Pearl, Mississippi; Paducah, Kentucky; Jonesboro, Arkansas; Edinboro, Pennsylvania; Fayetteville, Tennessee; and Springfield, Oregon, have been asking since school violence erupted in their communities.

     Over the last 19 months, the carnage in America's schools has left more than 30 students and teachers dead and more than 65 wounded, a higher casualty rate than that of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps combined. And all across the land, policy makers, politicians and pundits are searching for answers to why these killings are happening - and what can be done to stop them from happening again. Unfortunately, like a doctor who misdiagnoses a disease, it is unlikely that the prescription offered will provide a cure.

     Within hours of the gruesome killings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, gun control advocates lined up for interviews, damning the "easy availability of guns in America." "The NRA is somehow to blame," they cried, using words like "extremists" and "radical" and phrases like "out of touch" to describe anyone still defending the Second Amendment to our Constitution.

     Members of Congress are once again calling for new anti-gun legislation. But, the problem is not a shortage of laws to protect our citizens. Far from it. Today, we have more than 20,000 gun laws on the books. Unless these laws are enforced and those who break them are prosecuted, they aren't worth the paper on which they are printed. It has long been illegal for anyone under the age of 18 to possess a handgun. It is against the law to build pipe-bombs. It is against federal and state law for anyone to bring a firearm within 1,000 feet of school property. And since 1994, any school district receiving federal education funds (and they all do) must, at a minimum, "expel from school for a period of not less than one year a student who is determined to have brought a weapon to a school."

     If laws alone could stop school violence, the May 21, 1998 shooting at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon never would have occurred. There, a 15 year-old student murdered his parents, killed two of his schoolmates and wounded 19 others. But the day before, he had been apprehended by school administrators for illegally carrying a firearm into the school. Law enforcement officers took the troubled youth into custody, and a magistrate released him. The following morning the carnage occurred.

     Now, in the aftermath of the Columbine High School massacre, the same cast of characters is shouting for more laws, for more "gun control," and for more action from federal, state and local officials. This is all a cop out. If American society wants to stop kids from perpetrating mass murder in their schools, we need to stop calling for Congress to pass new legislation. The problem isn't a lack of laws - it's a lack of common sense compounded upon an unwillingness to address what is happening to America's children. Instead, we ought to do three things:

     First, if the government is going to require our kids to attend school, the government ought to protect them there - for schools have become killing zones for violent youth. To get on an airplane in this country, you need to pass through metal detectors. Apply that safeguard to every public school in America.

     Second, American needs to realize that its children are growing up in a toxic soup of hyper-violence. Today's children are exposed to graphic images of shattered bodies and bloody corpses on television, 24 hours a day - most recently from the war in the Balkans. Hollywood depicts scenes of unimaginable gore in movies, desensitizing children to violence, and sometimes creating even an infatuation with death. And interactive video games allow young people to act out violent cyber-fantasies in virtual reality. The answer isn't censorship, but rather a concerted effort to shame producers of such programs and games into stopping.

     The final and most important challenge is also the toughest. The Baby Boomer generation has divorced, walked out on their kids and abandoned their families at higher rates than any generation in history - and it is their children who are committing these horrible acts of violence. If Americans really want to stop violence in our schools, parents must understand that there is no substitute for real family time. What are the two most important words for parents today? "BE THERE."

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