I've been operating under the somewhat naive assumption that what would help curb violence in the United States would be better gun control laws. Or gun control laws that were enforced more efficiently. But this morning I've found that even in Germany, which has tighter gun control laws than we do (and is the other country I know lots about), there have been school shootings.
Deutsche-Welle published a brief article about two recent shootings, but I've started a quest to find out how many more have happened worldwide. I can think of at least one incident in Scotland several years ago.
It's a horrible issue. In yesterday's edition of the "Samford Crimson" there was an angry letter from a parent, who ranted about the fact that the reason gunmen choose schools as their targets is because they are guaranteed an unarmed populace upon which to vent their anger, and that the best answer to the problem would be for every single person at the school to have a weapon of their own.
I don't know the answer. Maybe the real exception has been that we (the fortunate, privileged, few of us) have been isolated and protected from violence for so long, that it comes as a shock to have it manifest in our midst. The world is certainly a violent place, and probably the majority of the world grows up confronted by daily threats to their lives and their existence, even many growing up here in the U.S.
As many of you know, I go to Baptist Church of the Covenant, which has a fairly diverse congregation. During the children's sermon on Sunday, the leader asked the children why Jesus had died and a little boy who lives in the nearby housing project, about 4 years old, said, "because he got shot". It struck me that that was his immediate response to why someone would die.
So, again, I don't know the answer, I just have the strong feeling that I need to figure out how to be part of it.
Blessings, peace, and prayer for those who are weary and suffering...
Addendum: the children's sermon leader responded, "No. He died for our sins." Not sure how helpful that was to a concrete-thinking, reality-based 4 year old mind.
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4 comments:
Mass murder is defined as killing 4 or more people at a time. I read something in the last week -- sorry, can't remember where -- that said that mass murders were as common in the 1920's and 1930's as they are today. The difference is that the killings back then were generally committed by men on farms, who killed their own families (and then themselves) when they could no longer provide for them. Nowadays, it seems to be because of alienation.
Yes. As my sister pointed out on the phone earlier today, you can't do much about the crazies. It's hard to know who they are before they snap and strike. The Deutsche Welle article said we should be sure to treat people fairly ... but you know, if they don't have a good grasp of reality, they can perceive what you do as unfair even if it isn't.
What we could affect is the more general crime. Now that might be more easily controlled if there were less access to guns.
One thing that gets me is the idea that having students armed on campus would make campus safer. I personally don't think I'd feel safer knowing that my students were packing heat, do you?
yeah, not even a little bit. I have to grade these people, and that makes some of them a wee bit unhappy. And you remember my stalker incident back at UT, right? Knowing that he had a weapon would have made things infinitely worse. Although, who knows, he may have....
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