Makes sense to me...

[Erik]

chuck green

But what about the parents?
By Chuck Green
Denver Post Columnist

March 1 - Upon hearing news that a 6-year-old boy shot a 6-year-old girl to death in a first-grade classroom Tuesday, the president of the United States issued his response while attending a Democratic fund-raising event in Florida.

According to The Associated Press, the president "decried the shooting and challenged Americans to take gun safety into consideration during this year's presidential elections." In other words, it's the government's fault. There need to be more laws.

For example:

Did the little boy have a concealand-carry permit?

Did the little boy purchase the weapon from an independent dealer after failing a background check by a licensed dealer at a gun show?

Did the little boy use false identification when purchasing the weapon?

Did the little boy use an illegal automatic weapon in the assault?

Did the little boy have an older person - possible a 9-year-old child - purchase the gun on his behalf?

Certainly, this tragedy must be government's fault because there aren't enough laws to control guns.

Certainly, it can't be the fault of the boy's parents.

Nothing is the fault of parents anymore. It's even become a fact of national policy - the president didn't even utter the words "parents" in his first reaction to the first-grade shooting in Michigan. All he talked about was the upcoming presidential election, as if politicians in Washington - not the killer's parents - are somehow responsible for what happened in a small school room in an obscure town called Mount Morris Township.

Certainly, it can't be the parents' fault.

Just ask Eric Harris' parents or Dylan Klebold's parents.

Of course, we can only imagine what they might say, since they have been hiding behind their lawyers for the last 10 months. They aren't talking to you or to me any more than they apparently talked to their own kids before the two teenagers massacred 13 people at Columbine High School last April.

It isn't that they haven't had the opportunity. Since the day of the murders, any journalist in the world would be willing to provide them a global amplifier. But they'd just prefer to sit back and listen to the president suggest that the answer to society's problems is more laws, not more parenting.

And that brings me to this:

Thirty years ago, when there was more parenting and fewer gun laws, there were far, far fewer kids killing people.

Why do you suppose it is that no politician is suggesting that the solution to America's ills reside in the kitchen rather than in the Congress?

It might just be that pollsters are telling candidates that voters believe the truth hits too close to home.

...

It is nice to see our views reflected in the paper. Now if only we could get cover stories. But I'll settle for more commentaries for now.

Erik

 

[johnbt]

According to this morning's Washington Post the boy lived with an uncle, only had the one round with him and didn't really seem to know what he had done. I couldn't finish the article at six in the morning. Too early and too sad. Welcome back TFL. John

 

[TMB2]

Another Nathaniel Abraham has surfaced here in S.E. Michigan and the anti-gun crowd WILL
blame responsible gunowners for the behavior of the criminal subculture. This kid is a criminal in the making. The following item from this morning's Detroit News has part of it wrong since the kid's father is in jail for parole violation - breaking and entering.

The Detroit News MT. MORRIS TOWNSHIP -- The time had come for the first-graders in Room 6 at Theo J. Buell Elementary to go to the library. There was the normal pushing, shouting and jostling. With the teacher already out of the classroom, a little boy and girl who had fought the day before on the playground argued again. At some point in the argument, the 6-year-old boy -- who weighs less than 60 pounds -- pulled a .32-caliber Davis Industries semiautomatic pistol out of his pocket, pointed it at one classmate and then turned the gun on Kayla Rolland, also 6, and shot her in the neck. The girl, so young that grieving relatives say they'll always remember her for the simple joy she found in riding her two-wheel bike, died less than an hourafter the 9:56 a.m. shooting. Just that quickly, this hardscrabble suburb of Flint became the backdrop of the latest in a spate of horrifying school shootings. While the carnage fell far short of the bloodbaths witnessed in Littleton, Colo.; Jonesboro, Ark.; and other locales now burned into the nation's collective memory, the Mount Morris Township shooting seemed especially jarring. Adults, sometimes teen-agers, do these things, but rarely such tiny children. The thought of a boy whose preoccupations should be baseball cards or Pokemon games pulling a gun and using it on child his age unsettled even the experts, who have increasingly been asked to make sense of the senseless.
"This is probably the youngest child killed in a school by another child," said Jack Levin, director of the Brudnick Center on Violence at Northeastern University in Boston. "It's extraordinary. And the very fact that it happened at all says there's something wrong with all of us, not just the shooter. The shooting left some outraged parents calling for stricter security at the school, which has two-full time security officers. Mothers Laura Simmons and Cynthia Kelly said they planned to launch a petition drive to have security cameras installed in classrooms and bring in more teacher aides. "We have to do something before something else happens," Simmons said. "What about the next time they fight over crayons, candy or a toy?" But little in the way of tougher gun laws or school security upgrades, short of metal detectors, could have prevented the shooting. Few school officials likely would have suspected a child so young would do something so violent. And the gun involved wasn't legally registered, but stolen. Still, gun control advocates and politicians on the presidential campaign trail seized on the shooting as proof of the need for stricter gun control measures, including trigger locks
that would make firearms useless to anyone without the key. Vice-President Al Gore used the shooting to challenge his opponents in the race for president to make gun control measures a priority. President Clinton, who spoke at a Florida fund-raiser, had a simple question: "How did that child get that gun?" Genesee County Prosecutor Arthur A. Busch said the answer to the question is paramount for investigators. "We will get to the bottom of how that gun got into that little boy's hand," Busch said. Conflicting accounts Police said they were still struggling to wade through the conflicting accounts of the shooting, all given by children at an age when the tooth fairy still seems real. All but five of the 22 children in the class had filed out of the room when the shot rang out. No adults were present. Gregory LaSalvia, a second-grader at the Beecher district school,
said that the boy had been showing off with the gun in the hour before the shooting. "He was bragging about the gun and bragging that he was going to shoot the girl and then he shot the girl," Gregory said. After the shooting, the boy managed to take momentary advantage of the confusion in the classroom and made his way past his teacher in the hallway, prosecutors said. He threw the gun in a trash can in the boys' bathroom and was still inside when several teachers grabbed him, police said. One teacher called 911 on a cellular phone. In the chaos, the school's principal first ordered teachers to lock the doors to their classrooms. When the children were finally sent from the school to a nearby church, they left through an entrance scribed with the words: "We love our children and care for their safety." The Detroit News is not naming the alleged shooter because he
will not face criminal charges. Prosecutor Busch said state law presumes that a child of his age cannot form the intent to kill or fully understand the result of his actions. The state's controversial youthful offender law aimed at prosecuting violent children as adults should not apply in this case because the boy is too young, Busch said. "Obviously, he has done a very terrible thing today, but he can not be held legally responsible," Busch said. The prosecutor added that in light of the apparent earlier altercation between the boy and the girl, "We preliminarily believe he intended to shoot her." The boy first told investigators the gun belonged to a classmate, a story police discount.
The prosecutor said that the boy will be placed with the Michigan Family Independence Agency until an investigation of his home life is complete. The boy's mother and father spent several hours with their son at the Mt. Morris Township police station Tuesday night. The boy left with his parents and state agency workers at about 8 p.m. Until several weeks ago, the boy had lived in a rundown
house about five blocks from the school. Plywood covers many of the windows and doors. Sheryl Datson, a neighbor whose daughter, Cherell, attended kindergarten and first grade with the boy, said he'd been known to bully other children. "All he wanted to do is cause trouble and roughhouse my daughter," Datson said. But Datson said she also felt pity for the boy, who seemed to be on his own much of the time and was responsible for getting himself to school most days. "He never hurt anyone, but you knew he might get into trouble soon," she said. The boy also was spending time at the house where neighbors said his uncle lived. Police raided the uncle's house where, police said, the boy occasionally stayed. Officers confirm the raid was related to their investigation into how the boy got the gun. Investigators said the gun had been reported stolen from a house in Mt. Morris Township three months ago. Neighbor Willard Oscar, 36, said he had reported suspected drug sales at the house to police. He said he had seen the boy playing there with several other children in recent weeks. Kayla Rolland's family struggled to understand the tragedy. Her uncle, Andy McQueen, 31, came to the school following the shooting. "She was just an all around good kid," he said. Vivian Walter, a friend of the McQueens, picnicked with Kayla and her family. "She was such a little, tiny, tiny girl. She was real quiet and she was very lovable," Walter said. "When my daughter
found out she had been shot, she just curled up in a little ball and started crying." Nancy Keltner,Walter's daughter, always enjoyed playing with the little girl. "She always liked to ride her bike and play outside. People are going to miss her," Keltner said. Copyright 2000, The Detroit News

 

[jeffelkins]

Excellent commentary by Mr.Green.

Don't you just shake your head when the politicians speak? My goodness, what whores.

 

[fal308]

Perhaps Chuck Green is right in saying that Congress and the gov't is responsible. I guess that means they should be locked up for breaking many of the 20,000 + firearms laws already on the books!
A perfect example is made by Mr. Green. Perhaps the Senate can be jailed for the possible illegal acquisition, the House for the lack of background check and the legislative branch for the various crimes committed in the illegal concealed carry. With all of the self-serving pols out of the way, things would most likely get better!