Consider the televised images of heavily armed (and armored) police and SWAT units at Virginia Tech, huddling behind trees and vehicles until it was deemed "safe to go inside."
Of course my sympathy and support go out to the victims and families of the victims of needless violence of any kind.
Those who are attempting to use such tragedies to disarm law-abiding citizens, however, should ask themselves this.
What measures, other than the immediate presence and action of a legally armed police officer, student, staff member or visitor could stop a crazed campus killer in their tracks and potentially save many lives?
If you have an answer, (or another question)
Please leave a comment Here
Nothing teaches a child more respect for life than holding death in his hands.
I went to school in a different time, the late 1950's and 1960's. It was a semi-rural area, and most people in the area had guns.
I was also a nerd before there was such a thing as a nerd. If I were in school today, I would have been labeled ADD and drugged into complacency. As it was, I was bored to tears because school was not much of a challenge.
I was a target for every bully in the school from grades 1-10, including the teachers. One classmate expected me to show up every morning and accept my usual harassment or beating and I usually did.
I dreaded every school day morning as a death-row prisoner must look at their last day on Earth, except I knew I'd have to repeat it tomorrow. Like many other kids in my school, I had easy access to guns.
If any kid ever had motive, means and opportunity to blow away a teacher or classmate, I did.
I eventually self-mediated a bullying solution by the forcible application of a large rock to the side of the aforementioned bully's head.
One of my teacher's reaction to that event?
"I wondered how long you were going to keep taking that crap."
And that was the end of it. No one was suspended, no one was punished and no one was seriously injured anywhere other than in their pride.
As a bonus, I found a sense of self-confidence, the bully learned that everyone has their limits, and all was well without 'government or legal intervention.'
We were taught to at least try solving our own peer problems before bringing them to an adult. The LAST THING I, or any of my classmates would have dreamed of, however, would have been to shoot someone. Like everyone else I watched Elmer Fudd point a shotgun at Buggs Bunny's face and pull the trigger. All that happened to Buggs was a soot-covered face. We knew, however, that you didn't point a real shotgun at a person.
Back Then, we Knew the Difference Between Fantasy and Reality
Killing a human being just wasn't a concept in my mind, or in the minds of my fellow students. A respect for life was something we knew instinctively in our souls.
We Knew that Killing People was Very Very Serious and Very Very Wrong!
Most of the boys (and a few of the girls) in my neighborhood, had guns. At age 14 we could buy WWII surplus German Mausers at the local K Mart™ for $12.00.
I spent a few weekends with sandpaper, steel wool, gun oil, polishing compound and shellac and the result was a good looking, tight, powerful and very accurate long-range rifle.
Anyone could buy a box of surplus NATO ammunition at Robbie's surplus, or even Fieldale Hardware Store for Two Dollars, with no I.D. and no questions. In hunting season, even some local gas stations sold ammunition.
On Saturdays, Alfred Stegall, the town police "chief" would occasionally stop by the local trash dump when we were shooting at rats, old refrigerators and pretend Nazis.
He never came by to scold us or interfere in any way, he merely wanted to see that we weren't being careless. He always said, "You boys have a good day now, and try not to shoot each other." before he left.
On other days we played war games, Cowboys and Indians and Cops and Robbers. For these, of course, we'd leave the 'Real' guns at home. We knew they weren't toys.
In Addition ...
- We built pipe bombs filled with our own home made black powder.
- We made bazookas (potato guns) that would shoot a dirt clod a quarter of a mile using hair spray as a propellant.
- We combined Water, Aluminum foil and Lye in pop bottles to generate Hydrogen and used it to float surplus weather balloons (ordered from the back of the Sgt. York comics) high in the sky. Then shoot them with flare guns and watch them burn. This was especially impressive at night.
- We knew that White Phosphorus (Willie Pete) could burn a hole in an engine block because we did it.
- We made rockets from steel broom handles filled with homemade solid rocket fuel (powdered Sulfur, Sugar and Magnesium) and used them to launch our homemade fireworks.
- Our toys had sharp edges, things that would burn you, shock you, crush your fingers and get lodged in your throat.
- We had easy access to knives, hatchets, axes and other potentially harmful tools.
- A classmate built a crossbow in shop class out of a leaf spring from a car. He could shoot a hardened steel rod through cinder block at 25 yards. He didn't get suspended, he got an "A" on his project.
- We lived next to woods and forests filled with poison ivy, bears, poisonous spiders and snakes.
- We played in and around rivers with undertow, abandoned Iron mines and all manner of other deadly places and things.
- We had fishhooks, bows and arrows, poisons and other potentially fatal objects all around us.
- We watched war movies, read really gross and violent comics (Sgt. York would be deemed too violent today.)
- We grew up with the horror of the Viet Nam war on television, and for many of us, in reality.
- We were forced to kill, and some of us, to die.
- We grew up living under the threat of nuclear annihilation.
- We practiced regular 'duck and cover' drills. [As if a school desktop would save us should the Russians attack.]
- We did not have any 'grief counselors' other than our family, friends and neighbors.
- We rode our bicycles without knee pads or helmets.
- We fun time riding in the back of pickup trucks, racing tractors and other activities that today might scream negligent parenting but to us meant 'quality time.'
Based on the above, our last reunion should have been attended by psychotic veterans, emotional cripples, parolees, grieving parents and widows.
SURPRISE -- other than those who gave their lives in the service of their country, we were pretty much alive and well.
Of course times were different in our childhood. WWII vets and those on active duty in Korea saw atrocities and had traumatic experiences. They went away as young men and returned as trained killers.
My parent's generation lived through severe economic depression and prohibition.
They lived through a war so all-encompassing that it truly was a "World War." Other Men and Women of the time worked in offices, foundries and factories in support of their nation, families and way of life.
These were our parents.
The difference between then and now….?
Adults, however misguided they may appear in hindsight, who not only deeply cared for the welfare of their children, but were at the same time, firmly grounded in reality.
My parents had their problems, and they both passed while I was in my early teens.
Apparently my parents had many disagreements, but never in front of me.
We were not wealthy, and my father was working much of the time. (Or being shiftless, depending upon which relative was describing him.)
Mom taught me to cook, can, sew and other 'non-traditional' skills at an early age because someday, "she wouldn't be there."
When dad was home he left no doubt in my mind that he cared.
He took me hunting when I was 8 or 9 years old, but only after I knew how to safely handle the .22 bolt-action single shot. My first kill was a rabbit. When I picked up the dead rabbit, something in my life my life changed forever.
The lovable furry little Cotton-tailed flop-eared critter that I should have been petting and cuddling was limp, wet, bloody and dead.
Nothing teaches a child more respect for life than holding death in his hands. From that day forward I had a deeper respect not only for life, but for what a person with a gun could do to that life in an instant. That respect for life is with me today. (BTW, we still ate the Rabbit, after mama showed me how to gut and clean it.)
Our parents didn't need to child-proof the guns, they chose to gun-proof the children.
Gunproofing your children is as important as drownproofing them, i.e., teaching them to swim. We shouldn't teach children to be afraid of the Water, we should teach them respect for it and how to swim in it.
Are parents doing their children any favors by saying things like, "Don't go near the water, you'll get sucked in!," or, "I never want my child to ever even see a real gun."
You know the lure the forbidden presents to children. Do we really want to foster this curiosity, or should we teach our children a healthy respect for the things that can hurt them, or others, such as guns tools, cars and swimming pools?
Are we doing children a favor, insulating them from anything that could cut, bruise crush or burn?
Could today's sterile, insulated, no losers, no reality "Childhood Umbrella" have some bearing on how unprepared many people are for life in the real world when they encounter it?
The non-sterile, often dangerous, occasionally frightening and hostile circumstances of our childhood gave us respect for our lives, and the lives of others. Could this possibly have some bearing on the fact that none of my classmates turned into serial killers?
It couldn't have been the guns, because we all had them. On the first day of Deer season it wasn't unusual to see a rifle or shotgun in somebody's locker when they came in at 2:00, just in time for the last class.
What we have to ask ourselves is not only why times were different then, but how.
Guns haven't changed.
Guns are pretty much the same as they were at the beginning of the century. They were easier to get then, but the mechanics have pretty much remained the same.
Children haven't changed.
Children are still being born without avarice, hatred, intolerance and bigotry.
Could it be parents who have changed?
- Is this the same set of "generation ME" parents who use television, video games and the Internet as "free baby sitters from Heaven?"
- Are these the same parents who attempt to demand respect from their children while they show no respect for one another?
- Are these the same parents who are appalled at the 'stage' violence on television, but engage in real violence in front of their children?
- Are these the parents who settle political, traffic and workplace disagreements with rage and violence?
No wonder the kids are screwed up!
But that's another rant!
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