School Massacres

Yesterday toward the end of class, one of my students noted that he read about the Sandy Hook school shooting via Twitter.  On the heels of the Oregon mall shooting, we were all left reeling.

(Here is a time line of some of the worst school attacks: Time Line of Recent School Shootings)

It was one of those "remember where you were when you learned of . . ." moments.

I can't fathom what would cause a person to kill another person, let alone murder 20 innocent children! I can somewhat understand the bullying and anger that motivated the Columbine shootings, but still I can't imagine hurting children.

Inevitably, one has to ask, "What is wrong with people?"

After that, I began to wonder what is it about our modern society that leads to such acts of violence.  Is it, as many have argued, our lack of real gun control?

It's interesting to note that in China 20 children were injured by a man who attacked a school. The difference?  He had to do it with a knife.  Zero lives were lost.  Likewise, several weeks ago I saw this story, where a man was able to prevent a school massacre.  He actually wrestled with his son, and thereby allowing his students to escape unharmed.  The difference?  The school shooter was armed with a high powered bow, not automatic weapons.  What would have things been like if the unhinged young man had walked into that class with automatic weapons?

Now, I'm not for taking away all guns.  I have many family and friends who own weapons and keep them secured and safe.  However, I don't know too many people who have assault weapons.  I'm for doing everything in our power to get rid of those.  But, come on, there has to be a more strict policy to keep psychos like this guy from purchasing 47 handguns and then threatening to go shoot an elementary school.

I understand the second amendment gives us the right to arm ourselves to protect ourselves and to protect ourselves from our government.  But outside of a far fetched film like Red Dawn, will a bunch of citizens wielding deer hunting rifles, hand guns, and assault weapons, really have a chance at overthrowing a government powered with an arsenal that contains nuclear and germ weapons?

And I'm not against responsible citizens carrying their own weapons.  Last weekend my wife and I took our kids to eat at the DQ in town.  A couple sat behind us, and, as they waited for their order, our son and their son began to joke and play around.  When I got up to leave I noticed that the father was carrying a gun.

At no time did I feel threatened or worried.

And I saw someone post on Facebook after the Oregon mall shooting that he was going to get his permit to carry because maybe - just maybe - if he'd have been there with a weapon fewer people would have died.

I'm not against him carrying a weapon, but I am against the idea that killing another human being - even when protecting innocent people - is as easy as it appears on TV.

Even worse, I've seen posts on Facebook where they say justice would be served if you were to put the shooter in a room with the family of one of the people killed at Sandy Hook.

That's lunacy.  Who assumes the family wants to combat an act of violence with an act of violence.  These people who post this stupidity don't realize that violence - no matter if your the defender or the offender - has a cost.  A steep one.

If it's not the availability of automatic weapons, maybe it's these damn kids.  They watch too much TV and they spend too much time on their computers and they play violent video games and they listen to that demon heavy metal music.

Well, check out this list of  Top 10 School Massacres.  Note that roughly half of this list took place in the 1960's or earlier.  Note too that the deadliest school shooting happened in 1927 by a disgruntled (and obviously insane) school board members.

So much for those deranged millennials.

I am, though, concerned about the violence in films and video games, but one of my good friends, Mr. Geiser, a history teacher at our school, is quick to note that we live in the most peaceful time in human history.  Ever.

Period.  That one is not even arguable.

Think of growing up in the 1940's and 1950's.  Those people lived through the Holocaust.  They lived through war after war after war.  They knew what it was like to look up into the sky (well, if you lived in Europe anyway) and see 300 bombers blotting out the sky.  Could you imagine the effect of that on us today?

And you go back in human history and see more violence and unrest than now.  Go all the way back to the Assyrians (the bad guys of the Old Testament).  Hitler would have been a very average Assyrian ruler!  These people sacked Babylon and in addition to killing and raping and pillaging and enslaving everyone they came across, they also diverted a river to flow over the city.

We would have a difficult time doing that with all of our technology today!