The Continuing Tragedy
Of Guns In America
Guns in America: another child dies.
Here’s
one adamantine fact. Thursday afternoon, a little girl in Michigan found a rifle under the bed at her grandfather’s
house. Curious, as four-year-olds are, she pulled the gun out. What happened
next is unclear. We know that somehow she pulled the trigger and her
four-year-old cousin is dead.
Accidents
happen, National Rifle Association leaders will probably say. Accidents will
happen. That is a fact. Wayne LaPierre could fall off a stepladder at home. He
could even break his neck in a fall. Then the gun nuts would have a new bumper
sticker slogan. I can see it now: “Guns don’t kill people. Stepladders do.”
“I
just saw blood everywhere,” Essance Sosa, 12, said Tuesday. “Everyone started
screaming and running.”
A metaphor for
America.
Blood
everywhere. Some might call that a metaphor for America. That would be an
opinion, of course.
So: what
other adamantine facts do we have? The boy had a shotgun. He brought it from
home. (Just about every school shooter in the last ten years has.) He hid it in
a band-instrument case or some sort of large bag. Reports vary on that. It has
been said he also sawed the weapon off so it would be easier to hide. Now an
11-year-old classmate is in critical condition. A 13-year-old girl is wounded
too.
Witnesses
also report that an eight-grade social studies teacher, John Masterson,
probably saved lives. Masterson is said to have convinced the boy to lay down
his weapon without doing additional harm.
I think
we can guess what the N.R.A. will say: “We must arm all the teachers.”
That’s
just my guess, though. That’s not a fact. Still, consider this kind of
scenario. Suppose Masterson had been armed? Is the real solution to start
having Wild West shootouts in our schools? Armed teacher vs. armed student?
Frankly,
that seems nuts.
It’s hard to keep
all the school shootings straight.
Pay
attention now. Don’t mix up your school shootings. Don’t confuse Masterson with Michael Lansberry,
who tried to stop a shooter at his school. Lansberry died last October when an
armed 12-year-old refused to lay down his weapon. Once more two classmates were
wounded. Then the shooter took his own life. To help you keep track: that
incident took place at a middle school in Sparks, Nevada.
It does
get confusing. Gunfire erupted inside Arapahoe High School in Colorado on December
13. More bullets flew at Edison High School in California the following week.
And don’t forget the shooting at Liberty Technology Magnet High School in
Tennessee. That was just nine days ago.
Finally, let’s not forget the bloodshed
at Hillhouse High School January 13. Of course, sometimes, armed students are
stopped before they can act. An 11-year-old boy in Vancouver, Washington was
arrested recently. He was carrying guns and 400 rounds of
ammunition at his
school.
Sadly,
the mayhem in our schools continued yesterday. This time two teens hanging out in the gym at their school were wounded. This
time bullets flew at Delaware Valley Charter High School near Philadelphia.
Both victims were fifteen. One was treated and released. The other is in stable
condition.
Florida “stand your
ground” law unlikely to cover assault with a box of popcorn.
That
shooting capped another bloody week in another bloody month in another bloody
year in the United States. Consider just one other case for the week. We know
that a theater patron, Curtis J. Reeves, 71,shot another patron Monday
at a matinee showing. (Lone Survivor was
about to come on the screen.) We know Reeves is 71.
We know Chad Oulson, 43,
the second patron, is dead. Those are facts. What exactly happened in the dark
theater is unclear. Reeves told police Oulson was texting during the previews.
This troubled Reeves and he told Oulson to stop. Words were exchanged.
Friends
of Oulson say he was texting a babysitter about a sick child. Reeves was
questioned by police after his arrest. He explained what transpired to an
investigator on the case:
“The
victim stood up, striking him in the face with an unknown object. The defendant
advised that he removed the .380 semiautomatic handgun from his pants pocket,
firing one round striking the victim, and that he was in fear of being
attacked.”
What did
Oulson use to strike Reeves? Witnesses say he threw popcorn at the older man. A
box? A tub? Buttered? Who knows?
Does it
matter at this point?
The Second
Amendment does not cover that.
There
are bloodier nations in the world. That much is true. Syria, for example, is
wracked by civil war. Ethnic fighting in South Sudan and drug-related killings
in Mexico come to mind. Yet, of all the advanced nations of the world, we
lead in both gun ownership and gun-related killings. And we lead by a mile.
In
America one four-year-old kills another. A twelve-year-old boy shoots a
teacher. A forty-three-year old theater patron is cut down. The Second
Amendment was not written with any of that in mind.
Author: John Viall is an ex-Marine, a retired teacher and currently at work on a book about
education, called "Two Legs Suffice: Lessons Learned by Teaching." He
writes about education at http://ateacheronteaching.blogspot.com/.