Another School Shooting. This Time It’s In My HomeTown
Posted on August 21, 2008 by Michael Paskel |
It happened again-this time in my own back yard.
On Feb. 15th 2008 we were jarred with the news of another school shooting, this one in Illinois.
A man walked onto a college campus and emptied his guns into students killing 7 including himself. This, only one week after two students at La. Tech College had been murdered by a fellow student who then took her own life.
My mind immediately returned to Blacksburg Virginia more than one year ago and the tragedy we witnessed there. I wrote this piece then and I am publishing it again here. Unfortunately the latest victim of a school shooting is Ryan McDonald, a sixteen-year-old Central High school student in Knoxville Tennessee, my home town. You can substitute the name of the killer and the number of victims as well as the location of each of these tragedies, but the substance of the piece remains in tact. At least 4 of the guns used in these tragic killings were purchased legally.
When will we enact meaningful gun control in this country?
It seems about time to review the mass murder in March 2007 on the campus of Virginia Tech. Any one of a thousand different circumstances could have changed ever so slightly the life of Seung-Hui Cho and ultimately prevented the slaughter. A family more open and in touch with the feelings of this troubled child, a more prudent reign by the hand of his parents preventing his immersion in violent video games, a less indulgent attitude by the few people who attempted to engage him, or perhaps a more strident effort by teachers and authority figures might have deviated this monster from the collision course he was on.
But of all the constituent parts of this tragedy, none leaps out more glaringly than the fact that barring a legal loophole that allows federal law to trump Virginia state law, the gun sale to Mr. Cho by an arms merchant in Roanoke was completely legal. Cho passed the cursory background check required in Virginia in spite of the fact he had been under criminal investigation in the previous 18 months for stalking two fellow V-Tech students and had been found by a judge to be a threat to himself and others as well as the assessment of one of his teachers that he was the most disturbed human being she had ever encountered. He was even committed for observation but released with a prescription and the well wishes of the Doctors who treated him. He later walked into a gun store and out the same day with the semi-automatic weapon he would us to calamitous effect 3 weeks later.
Without question guns are dangerous. And while some would argue that a gun purchased legally by a responsible person for defensive intentions is a right we all enjoy, it begs the question of whether it’s the “right” thing to do. Guns maintain their lethality regardless of the motives behind their acquisition.
I used to own handguns. I was most proud of my “Dirty Harry”, a stainless steel .44 magnum with a 6” barrel and a wooden stock. One day while at work someone came into my house and relieved me of that gun. I have often wondered where it went and to what purpose was it utilized. Did it end up on the streets in the hands of a criminal? Was it used in the commission of a murder? I’ll never know. But what I intended to be self protection became instead, a source of potential threat to me and others
The U.S has the highest murder rate by handguns of any of the developed countries on the planet. There will be more murders in the U.S. by hand guns today and tomorrow than the UK will experience this year. Australia had 50 gun murders last year compared to almost 12,000 in the U.S: at that rate that’s a Virginia Tech killing spree every single day in our country. Film maker Michael Moore in his documentary “Bowling for Columbine” opined,” Are Americans gun crazy or just crazy?”
But it’s not just guns that are acquired legally that pose a threat; a prison inmate survey conducted in 2005 showed that of those inmates who used a gun during the commission of the crimes for which they were incarcerated, 80\% of those weapons were acquired either from a friend a relative, or by an-illegal gun sale. This points out that the only way to reduce or eliminate the use of guns in crime is to reduce or eliminate the pool of guns available to criminals and potential criminals.
The legality and availability of handguns in this country are in stark contrast to research that has shown a direct correlation between handgun ownership and gun death. The more guns available, the more gun deaths in a given population. The same is true in other countries as well.
For example, the UK banned handguns in 1997 with the exception of replicas and air guns. Those legal guns now make up the largest category of guns used during the commission of crime in the UK. In other words criminals will use whatever weapon they have at their disposal.
I submit that while it is true that a baseball bat can be lethal in the hands of a determined criminal, Mr. Cho would not have attained the infamy now attached to his memory had he arrived on campus April 16,2007 with a Louisville slugger instead of the Glock he purchased legally nor would the county coroner be signing a purchase requisition for the replacement of 33 body bags.
The May 22nd, 2008 edition of the Oak Ridge Observer , the local paper in which my column appears, featured in it’s Senior Snapshot section, a photograph of graduating seniors from Oak Ridge High School. When I first saw that picture I was stunned. Four lovely young ladies, each regaled in Prom dresses, posed with each of their hands feigning the holding of a gun; the index fingers pointing skyward- assuming the stance of a shooter about to draw down on a target. It would seem that the menacing presence of guns and gun violence has now been accepted as a cultural icon in my community.
Gun violence is accepted as a cultural icon in my community, and probably yours as well.
Given the deaths of students at the hand of other students in this country, I could not imagine a more vile and inappropriate display.
We are much too cavalier in our fast-food Play Station world with the influences we allow to acquaint themselves with our kids. Someone needs to stand up and say ³wait, this is wrong² and they need to say it often and loudly. I have personally helped carry a coffin to its rest containing what was left of a 16-year-old classmate of mine, killed by another of my friends while they were at school. It was a very bad day.
I would gladly surrender my right to gun ownership to bring all these kids back to life or just one of them or to prevent the next killing.
I wish I lived in a country where the lives and welfare of our children meant more to us collectively than our individual right to own a weapon.
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5 Responses to “Another School Shooting. This Time It’s In My HomeTown”
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A very powerful and frightening piece. The USA is so steeped in the culture of the gun that I am afraid that without a major overhaul of the laws, this problem will only get worse. Here in the UK, our teenagers are emulating the gang culture of urban America, with tragic results.
Excellent article Michael. You sure can write!
Dave knows first hand the power of the media which idealizes a culture of violence and hate and then disseminates it, pre-packaged to a young generation hungry to consume and share it with others.
We will rue the day we turned our kids over to a T.V or video game console as our baby sitter.
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