A 52-year-old man walked into a Colorado high school Sept. 27, took six girls hostage and sexually assaulted two of them, after which he shot and killed one of the girls as well as himself. There was a deadly shooting at an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania Oct. 2 in which three young girls were killed and eight wounded by a 32-year-old man who also shot himself.
It is not just the frequency of these tragic events of the past week that is alarming, but also that these shootings are completely senseless, and further, they indicate the pervasiveness of gun violence in our culture to such an extent that it's reached Amish communities.
Gun violence has become the norm in America, especially for teenagers. In 2003, homicide was the second leading cause of death for people ages 15-24, with a firearm accounting for more than 80 percent of those deaths and about half of teen suicides.
Where are teens getting these guns? According to Ohio state law, it is illegal to sell guns to minors but it is not illegal for juveniles to possess them. In fact, the law states that they do not even need parental permission to have a gun.
The law does not require gun dealers to sell locking devices with guns, nor is there any state requirement that gun owners take steps to prevent children from gaining easy access to their firearms. Gun owners are also not held accountable for leaving loaded guns around kids, even if a child shoots himself or someone else with a gun left in plain sight.
The Second Amendment guarantees the right for every citizen to bear arms, but no one is looking out for the rights of children to grow up in a safe, nonviolent environment, or to go to school without fear of being hurt or killed. It has been said before that guns don't kill people; people kill people.
Yes, it is true that there is always a person pulling the trigger, but with the lack of strict gun control laws, it is no wonder why so many children gain easy access to firearms when they shouldn't. The percentage of high school students who carry weapons to school has risen steadily since 1999, the same year as the shooting at Columbine High School, with 19 percent carrying weapons in 2005.
Adolescents in this age group who are victims of violent crime are more likely to commit violence against others because they are desensitized to it from being in that type of environment. We can't expect our children to grow up psychologically healthy when there is so much violence in the media, video games and in their homes and communities. This becomes the job of parents and educators to control what their children are exposed to and to monitor them for warning signs such as depression, anxiety and antisocial behavior.
Of course, none of this answers the question of why the most recent school shootings occurred, especially since the perpetrators were two adult males who seemingly had no motive for doing so. We might never know the answer to that question, but one thing is clear: Violence precedes violence, and if we don't take a stand against it in the media and in our communities, as well as lobby for stricter gun control laws, our children will never be safe.
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