School Shootings

[gertilda]

I'm just disgusted at the media and they way they glamorize and drag out coverage of the shootings.  I really and truly believe that if Columbine had not been covered so "thoroughly", then other students would not have gotten the same idea, or the guts to go through with it themselves.



You could see by the pictures in California, that the students did not want the media there.  And there are always more shootings after incidents like this.  I'm all for freedom of the press, but really they must take into account the impression they are making on young minds.



Thoughts?

[marieh2000]

Gertilda,



I agree.  I have two children in public school and I belive that we should all be informed about these issues so that we can teach our children to be aware and try to stay safe, but showing the coverage to the point that the shooters are made to look like "movie stars" is a bit much.  



Just to tell you how much of an impression all of this has on our children, my daughter came home last week telling me about the "drill" they had at school that day.  I thought she was talking about a tornado drill since we had recently had a tornado go through our community.  When I questioned her about it, she said it was a "Code Red Drill".  When the principal comes over the intercom and announces "Code Red", the teacher locks their classroom door and everyone is supposed to get on the floor away from the doors and windows and stay there until they get the all clear announcement from the principal.  The really scary and sad part about this.......my daughter's only in first grade.  It really scares me to think what she's going to have to go through for the next 12 years.



Marie

[yankeestarbuck]

Where I went to high school, there was plenty of packed heat, but we kept it quiet.  It was for personal protection.  I say this not to sound "tough" or to be shocking.  It was the truth.  I carried a switch blade all four years.  But to walk through the school and brandish a weapon to just start blindly shooting, the shooter would have been out-gunned in a heartbeat.  It seems to me that we're blaming the media for putting the ideas in children's heads instead of blaming the parents who DID NOT instill positive self-images in their children's minds, and DID NOT keep those guns out of their hands.  Put the blame where it belongs.  The media just shows what we want to see.  If we didn't give them amazing ratings, would they put this on the news?



My old high school now has metal detectors.  They'd had them for years after I left, about 10 years.  If people don't want children sooting their classmates...talk to them.  Join an after school program as a volunteer or an evening program.  Get involved in the school activities that your children belong to.



I can probably say that not many of this site's members will need this advice.  People who are active enough to positively post on our website are probably pretty together at home. I'm just scared for the people who have no idea what their children are doing, won't go in their rooms.  Yes, I think that parents should know who their children's friends are, and their friends' parents as well.  It IS frightening for children, but being shot is probably worse.

[gertilda]

Wow, Yankee, that is totally differenty from my high school--small town, 32 in my graduating class, and the biggest "weapon" deal we ever had was someone getting in trouble for having one in their truck during hunting season.



I just don't understand.  We all had a friend in high school that was quiet, kept to themselves, and was picked on a bit. Heck, I was that kid for a while.  But these 2 friends of that kid getting prosecuted for not reporting something is ridiculous.  Here's someone that you've known most of your life, as been quiet all this time, and makes a few comments and you are supposed to take them seriously enought to report that?  How is a kid supposed to discriminate between joking and seriousness?  Most trained psychologists couldn't tell!!



I just can't understand--and it really makes me want to look into homeschooling any children I may have...

[djpcps]

Below are excerpts from an editorial in today's Atlanta Journal - it expresses a lot of the same opinions I hold - except I do not believe in charging, prosecuting and sentencing teenagers as adults - but reading this really struck close to home.



". . . The idea that parents are responsible and accountable for rearing and socializing their children has eroded. Too many parents seek to blame someone or something else for acts of social misfits. Too many have abdicated their responsibility to discipline, maintain order, demand respect, instill manners, accountability and a sense of positive achievement.



Liberal and permissive national, state and local politicians, in collaboration with so-called liberal social science experts, created laws that undermined order, discipline, manners, respect and accountability in our society. Educators cannot teach because of social misfits.



Allocating millions to education will not change the antisocial dynamics affecting teaching and learning. Until we elect politicians who have the intestinal fortitude to pass laws that hold adults, parents and children responsible and accountable for their negative behavior, we can expect our youth to continue to emulate adult violent and antisocial behavior. . . ."



We disenfranchise our young people every day - they are constantly told they are too young to drive, vote, hav sex, or buy alcohol.  BUT they are old enough to prosecute and jail as adults - where's the logic in that? Sending ever younger children to jail for the rest of their lives - how can we justify that?  The latest outrage is a 12 year old boy sentenced to life in prison - although it wasn't for a school shooting, another child died.  But even so, how can we hold a 12 year old responsible?  

[daisylee]

I'm not a parent, but I was a child.  I know things are so much different now than they ever were when most of us were young...my parents worked, but it was to put a roof over our heads.  We never had hundreds of dollars in disposable income.  We were also taught RESPECT, for all parents.  Ours, our neighbor's, your school friends.  ACCOUNTABILITY was what you did to keep from being whipped...and even then, you took your medicine.  And would our parents be in fear of us?  No way...and I still knew just exactly how much I was loved.  We, as a society, like in the article DJ quoted from, have put all the emphasis in the wrong places.  We teach and extol the virtues of instant gratification and entitlement, then scratch our heads when kids do things like this...what else is it other that the need to get exactly what you feel you deserve, or punish offenders who don't give you what YOU want? In the past, if you had a beef with a peer, the worst of it would usually be a kicking, punching, brawl.  And you either learned to live with that person after that, or you simply ignored them.  What a shame when we have the capability as a species to do so many miraculous things, we STILL resort to extreme violence to resolve conflict?!?



I pray for all the children out there, that they won't always have to live in fear..



Sad, but hopeful

Daisylee

[njadmin]

Just a couple of days ago, I received a letter from my son's school district about an incident that happened at our high school (this is the same school that I graduated from about 15 years ago).  



One of the students had a gun in his possession and was talking with other students about his intentions with his gun.  Thank goodness, an adult heard the conversation and called the school district and the students were smart enough to call the school district and the student was taken out of the school and was proscecuted.  The student now is on probation from school until an investigation and hearing is complete (I assume that means he will not be allowed in the school until at least the end of the school year).



It scares me a lot to think that in my neighborhood their would be a student "stupid" enough to try something like bringing a gun to school.  



We have been talking with our 8 year old son since the shootings were televised and he was in school about violence and what he should do if he ever hears another kid talking about such violence.  He said he understood what I said but I was not sure until one day he came home from school so proud of himself.  He told me that another kid on his bus was talking about hurting someone and talking about fighting and that he had guns at home, etc.  My son and 2 other kids on the bus heard his whole conversation and went to the principals office and told her the whole story.  The kid was sent home and was not allowed back until he got some help (not sure of what that was though).  I was so proud of him for standing up and letting an adult know of a bad situation.



I could go on and on with this subject but I must stop.



njadmin (Susan)

 

[yankeestarbuck]

I do not believe in Satan, that is just a saying, firstly.  Secondly, I DO NOT support ANY physical force taken against any other person in retribution untried in a court of law. With that said, I will just put a few things out there to help us understand why this is happening.



Has anyone been a cheerleader?  Not me.  And boy did it suck for any girl not in that circle. If you didn't look like a Barbie doll, you were easy pickins for those who did and they attack in packs.  (Group activities are easier than one on one.)  Anyone date a high school sports hero?  Was he a jerk?  Can youimagine what it's like to get tortured every day because from an early age you know you're smart (a geek) or different (eccentric, gay, artistic)?  I was an eccentric and VERY unique child was WAS a tortured kid.  My fiance was the proverbial geek.  Also, picked on, teased, beat up and tortured all through school.  That can get to you after a decade or so.  Where do we go from here?



"Kids will be kids"...so we say.  Well, kids with guns are deadly.  I asked before, why aren't the parents instilling positive self esteem in these children?  Every day my mother told me I was beautiful and I was creative and I would use my tallents to be famous some day. (I'm still working on that.)  I "got out."  My fiance was not so lucky.



He was also admonished by his mother for "reading too much" and for "playing on that damn computer thing when the sun is out."  He couldn't run that fast so he hated running games.  What did mama do?  Made him try out for track to "get over it."  Well, he doesn't run anymore but he's an IT manager making NICE money in a booming field.  And every day he asks why I'm with him?  Is this fair to him?



I think if children in groups are picking on kids, as was the case with the two Columbine murderers, parents and teachers and guidance counselors should step in and get this straightened out.  And these children SHOULD NEVER feel as if ANY problems can only be solved with a gun.  They shouldn't even have the access to the weapons.  I weep for the future.  I seriously question whether or not I want to have children.  Who knows if they'll be bully targets or torturers?   I don't know if my heart could take it.  And I hope that we can teach our children not to make these mistakes.  

[winkiebear]

Yank, I agree with some of what you said, just want to put another spin on it ... from experience.



When I was growing up, in a Catholic family of 6 kids, I went to school in another town ... had to ride the bus.  All my friends near my home went to the public school up the street, and I fit in fairly well ... mostly because I was a tomboy and most of the kids in the neighborhood were boys.



School was another whole universe from where I lived.  At school I was picked on, humiliated, and miserable.  When I came home crying, my mother didn't do anything ... I don't know if it was because she didn't know what to do or if it didn't matter to her.  See, adults have better reasoning power than children ... she was convinced that whatever was happening at school could not be that bad, because I maintained high grades.  But high grades was the only way I could think of to let those other kids know I was "better" than them.



Didn't work out too well, grades fell in high school, and I started to not care.  Still got made fun of daily, but it was now on a more broad scale because there were more kids in high school.



And now as an adult, I'm beginning to like who I am.  I'm a little more sure of myself ... I know that I don't have to "save" people from themselves, and I've given myself permission to be not liked.  And as a result, I've noticed that the "beautiful people" - that is, the people who, if they had known me in school, would have bullied me - these people now LIKE me.  You know the ones - the cheerleaders, the jocks, the sweethearts, the brains.  It's a hard situation to adjust to - people now like me for who I am, for what I have to say.  My intelligence isn't a punishment, it's a privelege.



But the point of what I should be trying to say is that, even though there were a LOT of people who didn't like me then, I never once would have thought to bring any kind of a weapon to school.  I would never have thought to translate my own pain into hurting someone else.  I revelled in my teenage angst - it was my own, it made me unique.  And it helped build the person I've become.



Maybe someday I'll share this with my own children.  Probably only if the situation warrants - if they begin to go through similar scenarios.  In the meantime, I have to trust that I'm doing the right thing in the way I raise my children ... that they will be trustworthy, honest, and kind adults.



Because, when you get down to it, isn't that all we can hope for?



Off the soapbox for now,

 winkiebear

[yankeestarbuck]

Yes, and you will make sure your child isn't bringing a sawed-off shotgun to school to blow away the local brute squad, as will I.  What I'm saying is, things need to be done NOW to prevent this, like children being supervised more closely by THIER PARENTS.  And the states truly do need to enact stricter guns laws.  Yes, the 2nd amendment affords us the right to bear arms...against bears and stuff like that!  I mean, this country was mostly frontier land when these amendments were created, when a settler needed weapons for everyday life.  You tell me why people need a semi-automatic weapons in their homes.  Someone once told me that Nazi Germany enacted strict gun laws before they took over the country and so did Communist Russia and so did several other countries that aren't as free as America.  Well, I'm sorry, but in my humble (twisted) opinion, this government, both democratic and republican and any other group, does not care for Joe (Josephine) Q. Public far enough to pee on them when he/she's on fire, much less try and "take us over".  If they cared so much to "take us over", maybe we could get public healthcare out of the deal.



Yeah, that was extreme, I'm sorry.  Just a little outburst.  Please forgive me. I just get annoyed to hear that we, as a society, need more guns.  And our president, bless his heart cuz I know he means well, let's the citizens of Texas walk around with the things out in the open (shudders).  I do not like guns.  And having them near children is stupid (sorry, I'm being harsh again).  When children feel isolated to the point where too many others are being hurt, we need to act as a society.  Child is the father/mother of man/woman.  We need to start investing further in the future of our children.  Because if the morals of our country are falling to pieces, we only have ourselves to blame.

[laundryhater]

I blame these kids' parents for not instilling values in these kids from the time they were little. Values such as: respect thy parents & elders, respect the other kids' rights, respect authority (police, teachers, government), killing is wrong, don't hit other kids, etc...



Respect parents, elders & authority: When I was younger, what my Mom said went. If we questioned her authority, my Mom would reply, "Because I'm the mother and I said so!" And that was the end of the discussion and we knew not to push the issue. Nowadays (I witness this a lot at the public laundrymat) kids sass back more and tell their mothers what to do and if they don't get what they want the first time they ask they keep bugging their mothers. Instead of sticking to their guns and saying no repeatedly, the mothers give in - which teaches the kids that "mom is wishy washy and if I beg her long enough I will eventually get my way". And soon the kids don't respect their wishy washy mom. And if kids don't respect their parents they sure aren't going to respect other people because your parents are supposed to be the example setters. And so the kids manipulate other people. Finally one day they find someone they can't manipulate and they can't understand why and they shoot them for lack of coping skills for this unique situation.