I am going to comment on this
school shooting in Georgia. To begin with, I feel empathy for the students, and
the faculty. They have been through a traumatic event in their lives, and I
hope they find the strength to somehow overcome the grief, sense of loss, and
sorrow
The reason for this shooting, is the reason for just about all the rest. The reason for this shooting was not the gun. It is not the parents; I will have an opinion on that later. But for now, the root cause of this shooting is bullying at school. This child was bullied, and he did not see any other way out, so he shot people, and he took human lives. The school districts, administrators, counselors, and teachers don’t do enough to curb bullying. They didn’t do anything then, and they do less now.
They haven’t changed their tune since I was in school some 50 years ago. They
are to blame for the proliferation of school shootings. They have blood on
their hands. Society argues gun control every time one of these shootings happens,
but we never argue, or even discuss bullying. There are other underlying causes
at work here. There are mental health issues, there are school bullying
policies, or lack thereof, teacher issues, and the cornerstone of the problem,
is the systemic blindness of the problem and the systemic mismanagement by the
people we put in charge of educating our children. The administrators. They focus
too much on academics and too little on the emotional well-being of our
children. The administrators should be focusing on the academic well-being of
our children, but not at the expense of the emotional well-being. There can’t be
one without the other. When there is, we have what we have been enduring at a
greater rate for the last 30 years, school shootings. The administrators want to blame teachers,
parents, law enforcement, guns, and everything but themselves. There needs to
be a political, educational, and administrative reckoning in this country when
it comes to bullying in school.
I was bullied in school. There were
loaded guns in our house when I was growing up. I never once thought to use
those guns to fight bullies. I fought bullies, because I intensely dislike
bullies, and bullying. My reaction to a bully was to fight. Not shoot them. I
was able to fight them, because of my attitude, my size, and determination.
Mostly my very bad attitude at times. Some can deal with bullies, some can’t.
for those who can’t they need help and aren’t getting it from the very people
who are supposed to help them, not ignore them.
Now about the parents. If they are going
to crucify and imprison the parents for missing the signs, then the teachers,
the administrators, mental health doctors, counselors, and in this case, the
FBI agents, the local police, and all who knew about the danger of the kid last
year, all need to be up there on the cross with the parents. There is enough
wood for everyone. Either crucify them all, or none of them, they all have
blood on their hands. Blood is blood, how much is irrelevant.
If this is a case where everyone’s
hands were tied, then society needs to untie their hands, so the professionals,
and parents can better do their job in catching the problem early. Society must
find the political, emotional, and moral will to be proactive, instead of
reactive. Debates about guns and thoughts
and prayers are not the solution. It starts with policy changes, and the
application of those changes. It goes back to the beginning of the problem, the
administrators, who can be the solution, if they just choose to be.
The child must now face the
consequences for his actions, whatever they are. That is going to be up to a
jury. As well it should be. This child needs to at the very least needs to go
to jail for the remainder if his life. In my opinion, age notwithstanding, they
need to execute him. Not for closure, because that is a myth, or justice
because that is a fleeting fool's folly. But for punishment. You commit crime
X, and you get punishment Y.
There is no easy solution for this epidemic
that we are enduring as a society. On one hand, the rights of the one must be
compatible with the rights of many. If expelling this child from school, permanently
for that stunt last year somehow violates his rights, then there needs to be a
solution that is equitable for him, and all the others who don’t have a problem,
so the rights of all are not violated. This child last year needed to be taken
out of school and watched closely by the authorities. The law enforcement
apparatus, the school district as an institution, and the parents, all made mistakes,
and society suffers the consequences. I was told by my father more than once
that there are consequences for everything you do in life, whether they are
good or bad was up to me. Well, here we are, and where society is concerned,
there are consequences for how a society deals with these consequences, how
about society do something so we get some positive consequences for a change. This
school shooting thing is wearing thin, and needless death is wearing even
thinner.
