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The recent
shooting massacre at Red
Lake High School represents a horrific event that could happen
at any school in the United States. Every day we hear additional
news stories about children or teenagers who bring firearms to
school. In most cases, the firearms are confiscated without incident.
This provides little comfort, however, as the very idea of a child
having access to a loaded firearm and smuggling it into school
without their parents' knowledge is more of a risk than any of
us would like to take with our childrens' lives.
When a shooting
does occur at school, you can count on the media to lend a helping-hand
to their anti-gun buddies in congress by isolating the gun as
the cause of the crime. The media wants you to view the blood,
suffering, and loss and come to the conclusion that the crime
never would have occured if the child did not have a gun.
What the
media blatantly fails to recognize, however, is that teenagers
used to bring guns to school on a regular basis at a time when
school shootings did not exist.
Firearms
were stored at school by students who planned after-school hunting
and target shooting activities. The ROTC also used real firearms
with live ammunition for decades before they were banned in schools.
This occurred
at a time when children obeyed their parents and teachers and
respected each other. This type of respect for others and joy
of life was displayed in many facets of our culture including
books, movies, and music. Children were readily discplined in
an effort to raise them to be responsible adults. Americans in
general were proud of their country and anxious to contribute
their best.
Despite the
important landmark advances in civil rights and freedom of expression,
social
values in the United States have changed dramatically since the
drug and sex revolution of the 1960's. Many aspects of our culture
glorifies and encourages personal behavior that often results
in feelings of isolation, detachment, and loss of self-respect.
Today, many
of America's children are being raised in a culture without any
life-affirming, discplined values to balance out external factors.
Parents and teachers are failing to hold children responsible
for their actions leaving them without role models and without
expectations of behavior. Many adults relinquish control of their
children with disastrous results. In many cases, kids with behavioral
problems are being prescribed mood-altering drugs as a means to
control behavior without exercising discpline. Very little is
being discussed about the violent side-effects of these drugs.
Blaming inanimate
objects is yet another display of failure to accept responsibility.
There is no telling how many young people are graduating from
high school with serious mental issues that will only be further
exacerbated once they enter college or the work force. It is imperative
that we, as a society, make a concerted effort to identify the
root of this problem. This will be difficult to achieve since
the very institutions who want to take away our guns contribute
greatly to the fragmentation of our society, lack of common culture,
and intolerance for life-affirming expressions or behaviors.
It is worth
noting here that Israel, a country targeted by terrorists on a
daily basis, has
not had a school shooting since 1974. They eliminated their
vulnerability to attack by arming and training teachers and administrators
in firearm use. And while this may seem like a shocking suggestion
to American teachers, there is no telling how many lives and injuries
could have been prevented if the school's administration had taken
a more proactive role in providing for the defense of the children.
Jennifer
Freeman is Executive Director and co-founder of Liberty Belles,
a grass-roots organization dedicated to restoring and preserving
the Second Amendment.
http://www.libertybelles.org
jennifer@libertybelles.org
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