Since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting there have been 74 school shootings in the United States.
For you math people, that ends up averaging out to one school shooting a week (at least. 52 weeks in a year means there’s MORE than that one some weeks.)
Children are killing each other. Adults are killing children. Companies are trying to profit on the fear that we feel in response to this by creating bulletproof blankets for children to hide under. I am old enough to remember Columbine. I remember that our teachers were afraid. I remember one of my classmates joking about bringing his gun to school, and he was sent to the office.
Our culture cannot sustain this heartbreak any longer. We have to change the way we look at gun ownership. Parents should not be giving their toddlers guns for their birthdays. The little boy down the street from me should be put on time out for pointing his toy gun at my dog and I. Weaponry should no longer be a toy, weaponry should not be looked at as something fun.
I’m not sure why or how we’ve gotten to this point in our culture, where it is safer to be outside of a school than inside of it, but that’s where we are.
I used to work in childcare. Specifically, I worked in theater, and for some shows we had to do stage combat. I’ve always told my charges that when it comes to stage combat, it doesn’t matter whether or not the weapon is real or not, it has to be treated with respect, and the safety of your fellow actors is paramount.
The reason these things are happening has nothing to do with video games, I don’t think it has much to do with the NRA (though they don’t help). This is not about not letting people with mental illnesses have guns. This is not about racial bias. I think it has to do with two things:
It has to do with the fact that child on child violence in schools is never considered a legitimate problem until someone brings in a gun. Bullies go unchecked until other children are pushed to their breaking limits. It has to do with how easy it is to get a weapon, and just how prevalent they are in our society.
I know not everyone will agree with me – but we have to change. Something HAS to change, because I’m not sure I can look at the internet breaking the news of yet another school shooting. I cannot wake up in the morning and see that yet another small child has accidentally shot their sibling. I can’t. My heart breaks so easily now, and while I wish I could get over it – I am grateful that I have not lost my empathy in the wake of so much violence,
No one is winning this game, we need to change it.
I grew up playing pretend guns. We mostly had to make our own out of sticks, because I’m pretty sure my parents wouldn’t buy toy guns for us. We also made swords, bows & arrows (privet for the bow for strength; forsythia for the arrows for lightness), and adapted shields from trash can lids.
But my parents talked about guns. As tools, really. The never point it at something unless you mean to shoot it, kind of thing. So the lessons about safe handling of tools which were drilled into us (oops, sorry for the pun) reinforced those more abstract messages about guns. You ALWAYS leave the rake tines down, carry the axe facing out so you can’t fall on it, assume the power is connected to a power tool, push wood into a bandsaw (which we also didn’t own) with another piece of wood, and so on. Oh, and I carried a pocket knife to school which would get me suspended these days (and lovingly oiled and sharpened it), but I thought of it as a tool.
So I think your point about the attitudes towards violence in schools is well taken. It’s not about the tool used for the violence, something that gets lost in a lot of zero tolerance rhetoric about weaponry in schools. There is verbal violence, and physical violence that does not include obvious weapons.
Disregarding bullying only reinforces the idea that you have to (physically) stand up for yourself (another trope that’s reinforced socially). Kids aren’t stupid. If they have tools available to them (e.g. guns) why wouldn’t they use them in order to strike back?
But there’s the other thing, the problem of toddlers picking up guns and shooting people without even realizing what they’re doing. Again, I wouldn’t leave a sharp blade or a plugged in drill in reach of a toddler, especially one who’d played with a toy knife or drill and thought they knew how to use it.
I too played with swords, and slingshots, and I took archery lessons. There’s something about the current culture that has changed all that for me. And while I’d still let my kids play knights and dragons, I think I’d definitely be a little hesitant to let them play with any kind of “modern” weaponry.
As to your latter point, I too carried a pocket knife to school. 🙂 Things have changed, but I think part of it is that children don’t seem as responsible for their actions as they once were. I know if I hurt another child, I’d have to apologize.