15-year-old killed by classmate in California

Tightening security is not the solution, and guns aren't the problem. School culture is the problem.

When you feel like none of the adults respect you or listen to you and the other kids get away with making your life hell...is it so surprising you'd make your frustration known through the barrel of a gun?

So what's the solution? How about respecting children, listening to their problems, mediating problems with their peers instead of waiting to punish them when they get into fights, discouraging bullying and changing the disturbing social trends apparent in most public (and some private) schools?

Oh, is that too hard? I'm sorry. Let's just add some metal detectors and blame Marilyn Manson.

I disagree whole heartedly. Guns ARE the problem. You think kids are going to stop being kids?

Sure, some mediation, some parental guidance, some teacher briefings, and more discretion in the media's use of violence as entertainment. But kids will always be kids.

Everything being connected, it's a problem that like all others needs to be dealt with holistically, and yes, the way our society is set up is partly to blame. But first and foremost, guns need to be made unavailable to the citizenry.

The problem starts are home. A surprising number of these shooters are kids whose parents have put them on anti-depressants rather than take the time to actually parent their child. "Parent their child" is an idiots expression for "LOVE" their child.

What is the cause of these "shooters" depressions? Suppressed rage. So, we have a bunch of really smart Doctors, you know they're smart because they charge a lot of money and they went to expensive schools and got the necessary degrees, any way, so these really smart doctors have a kid brought into their office that has problems. The parents says I don't know what to do with him - to the doctor. The doctor says don't worry, we'll get him or her fixed up.

Problem: depressive; unmotivated; withdrawn; often in a bad mood; etc., etc.

Solution: a prescription for a mind altering substance in adequate quantities to affect desired result.

Problem: cause of depression untreated, still existing.

Result: suicide; homicide. If they live: life long addiction to medication; poor self-image; perception of self as defective; not as good as others; low self-esteem; under-achievement; dependence on others to define them; etc., etc.

The reality is these parents are terrible parents. Additionally, the reality is many many teachers are no better at providing: security; guidance; nurturing, or being a: suitable role model or a mediating force in the classroom.

My son has been picked on by a few bullies in his 5th and 6th grade class. The teachers pretend not to notice and do nothing about it. Even when pressed, the response is weak at best and to date has failed to meaningfully stop it in any of the cases. You could say my son needs to learn to deal with these sorts of people, and I've said the same, but it's another thing for the teachers to condone it by allowing it, to create an environment where such behavior can manifest and not providing suitable direction of what is and is not tolerable conduct to the little brats of equally crappy parents.

When both parents are required to work to make ends meet, who's parenting the children? Why is this not realized as a serious breakdown in our society by Congress? Are they equally rotten parents? Are they completely ignorant of what is necessary to develop a healthy society that can sustain? Do they care?

It's all interconnected. You can't have a politicians allowing ridiculously high interest rates on credit cards and claim they care about child development. You can't have a President allowing oil companies to rape the American public and believe he or his plastic wife care about our children.

Write you congress person and tell them what a horrible job they've done and what's important to you!

Stephen -

If guns are the problem, why has gun violence in schools increased so dramatically in recent years, while access to guns has remained historically the same? Also, Canadian citizens have as many guns as we do if not more, so why should they have so much less gun crime if guns are the problem? I might also point out that most children who are taught to use guns responsibly at an early age are actually less likely to shoot other people, according to a number of statistics and studies.

Kids being kids has nothing to do with kids being violent and rude to their peers. Do you really think that's the natural state of a child? Children all over the world are able to coexist peacefully with their peers, without bullying or gun violence. This is purely a societal problem.

As for making guns unavailable to citizens, that's likely to piss off a lot of hunters, not to mention people who enjoy having constitutional rights. Oh, and criminals will still be able to get their hands on guns, since they don't generally go through legal channels anyway.

No.

Allsunday - you make a really good point about how the school system needs to put more emphasis on making sure kids are comfortable in their school environments. I think we all know a few kids we grew up with that just didn't fit in to the social structures in their schools and it really is unfair to them. But do you REALLY think this child can't be blamed for KILLING a classmate? I mean c'mon... we simply cannot say that there's reason enough for an 8th grader to not only bring a gun to school, but to actually kill another human being. Don't you think the child who was murdered probably had some problems of his own? Let's get serious.

And Stephen,

We can't make guns "unavailable to the citizenry". It's simply never going to happen. You want to be holistic... try being realistic. If we take the right to own a gun away from the individual, those who really want guns will still be able to get guns and we as civilians will be defenseless. Think about it.

The PROBLEM is the adults, ESPECIALLY those with children of their own, who are ignorant enough to own weapons and keep them somewhere accessible to their children. How in the hell does this keep happening? How STUPID do you have to be to allow your child (whose life now is inevitably ruined) to have access to your guns?

To the parents of this child: You have ruined your child's life, congratulations.

What a senseless crime. Even at the risk of sounding cliche, I must say that"Guns don't kill people, people kill people." A capable and rational person can hold a gun without any temptation to murder a fellow human being. But when you put a gun in the hands of someone who is irrational and is driven by pure emotions, that is when a gun becomes dangerous.
I live in Ventura, which is right next to Oxnard. Our hearts and prayers are with his family.

Guns don't kill people. Bullets kill people. Guns just make bullets go really, really fast.

Allsunday, you make good points. But I do believe that the phrase "boys will be boys" has a LOT of merit. Yes, I believe that inherent in a male adolescent's nature is rudeness, violence, and insecurity. And if you dont think so, girl you're giving way too much credit to boys.

You can't say that it's entirely the parents' fault. There are plenty of societal factors that can exacerbate and magnify the problems a youth may be experiencing, many of which have already been discussed in this thread.

Yes, you can minimize these problems with intervention, mediation, etc. But if you make guns available, they will turn to them as a last resort for angry self-expression.

And this may be the case for adults too, who suffer from the same experiences of isolation, ostracization, victimization, etc. In my own home town of Wakefield, MA, a disgruntled office worker walked into his office with an M-16 and killed 7 coworkers before taking his own life.

It's not just kids. You ask the victims, or the victims' families, how they feel about gun control, and let me know, i'd be thrilled to hear their POVs.

ps - I dont give a damn about hunters or 2nd amenders.

I agree with Stephen. I was at a convention in Sacramento the other day, and a guy shot his friend in the parking lot outside the hotel. From what I understand, it was the shooter's 21st birthday, they had a party at the hotel, and the guy who ended up with a bullet in him had hit on Birthday Boy's girlfriend. Had the gun not been there to begin with, it may have only resulted in a drunken fight or an angry exchange of words. Or a stabbing. Even had it been a stabbing, the victim has more of a chance to fight back than when powerless with a barrel between their eyes. Guns just make aggression escalate too fast too easily.

Seriously, it's time to ban firearms to everyone not in law enforcement or the military.

I may sound like a whack job, but I think it's everything. The whole energy in the world. It's not having guns accessible. I knew where the guns were in my house at all times growing up. I could get at them in a second if I wanted. But I would have never thought to bring one to school and shoot someone. No one cares that a gun shoots a bullet. They care that a HUMAN shot another HUMAN. and that kids would somehow be inspired to end another's life. It is true, however, that if the guns weren't there- they couldn't use them, but they are there and they will always be there, whether they're manufactured or people fashion their own. If it wasn't a gun- it would be a knife. If it's not a knife it's poison. It's great to want guns gone. I want guns gone. They don't serve any purpose. But they'll always be around.
What needs to be mended is the youth's minds. I think they pick up energies in the world and it doesn't help when parents spend maybe five hours a week with their kids and stick 'em in daycare(school) or pacify(drugs, television, things) them the other 163 hours. Kids have no sense of conflict resolution. Or facing difficult things head-on. There's a panic if something goes wrong and the only way to fix it is turn it off or just delete it. Computer culture is infiltrating more parts of the brain and the psyche than we know about.
The physical elements are a part of it, but the psychological elements are much deeper and much greater, and the passage of time is making them almost impossible to reverse or correct.

no guns, no shots! they may do it with fist instead but it kills much less....
time to stop that gun access and culture

LaWingman -

"But do you REALLY think this child can't be blamed for KILLING a classmate?"

I never said that, nor would I. Of course he's to blame. However, the question is what can we do to prevent such things in the future? In order to answer that question, we need to look at the root of the problem, and the root of the problem is not access to guns, it's the fact that children are somehow motivated to kill in the first place.

Stephen -

"Yes, I believe that inherent in a male adolescent's nature is rudeness, violence, and insecurity. And if you dont think so, girl you're giving way too much credit to boys."

And I think you're giving them way too little. You think "boys will be boys" means "boys will kill people because they're naturally prone to violence"? Really? I can't even believe you actually believe that. A male adolescent's nature is, in short, excessive energy. That energy can be focused on any number of things, and none of them have to be violence.

And yes, I think it's more than obvious that people of any age can and will turn to guns as a last resort for angry self-expression. That's not what we're debating, here. We're debating why they're so angry and frustrated that they feel the need to express themselves in such a manner in the first place - and it's not because they have access to guns. The gun is the weapon, not the motivation, and no matter what you may claim, the motivation is not just that they're boys and boys are inherently violent, awful people who will kill things if given access to a weapon. Ridiculous. Most people of either gender in any age range DON'T choose to kill other people when given access to weapons. That's the entire point. It's simply not normal.

Oh, and thanks for not giving a damn about a good fraction of the US population who likes to hunt and/or supports the Constitution - myself included. That's nice of you.

Adumbration -

There's no question that guns can make a situation go down a lot harder and faster than it usually would, but most guys wouldn't find someone hitting on their girlfriend a good enough motivation to kill. A normal, mentally healthy person wouldn't have used the gun even if they were absolutely seething.

So theoretically, if you banned guns, people wouldn't have the means by which to kill people quite as easily, though they could still find other means...well, assuming that they don't just buy guns illegally, of course. But for the sake of argument, let's just say no one has guns anymore. Maybe fewer people are dying...or maybe it just takes them longer to die from the stab wounds. But we still have a society full of angry people willing to kill, they just find it a bit harder than they used to.

That is the quintessential band-aid on a broken leg.

Tranism -

So you ban firearms to everyone not in the military or law enforcement. Now, you have a world in which hunting is forbidden, shooting competitions are illegal, and all gun-related sports (there are many) are banned. But there's still plenty of gun-related crime, because most criminals never bought their weapons legally in the first place, and still don't.

In reality, crime rates can - and do - actually increase when a gun ban goes into effect.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258067,00.html

"Not only is Washington, D.C.'s gun ban unconstitutional, but it also has been a public policy failure as seen in the rise in crime since its enactment..."

Everyone needs to stop concentrating on the weapon and start concentrating on why the US has more gun-related deaths each year than any other first world country with gun laws and numbers of gun owners that are essentially the same. It's simply not the guns that are the real problem.

Oh, and guys? This is my absolute favorite:

http://www.mindconnection.com/library/personal/gunban_aus.htm

"Summary of first-year results (1999):

* Australia-wide, homicides are up 3.2 percent
* Australia-wide, assaults are up 8.6 percent
* Australia-wide, armed robberies are up 44 percent (yes, 44 percent)

In the state of Victoria alone, homicides with firearms are now up 300 percent. (Note that while the law-abiding citizens turned them in, the criminals did not and criminals still possess their guns!)

Even a moron can see that an anti-gun position is a pro-crime position. Are you voting for politicians who want to help criminals hurt you?"

Guns have been in possession to the American people since the Revolutionary War. Our historic children/kids have never shot their fellow citizens. This "SCHOOL SHOOTING" is a "TREND" or "REPRESENTATION" of the TWENTY FIRST CENTURY. When did the fucking kids become so neglected? I am talking about a demographic of three to twenty-three years old.

WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS?
WHAT ABOUT THE FUCKING KIDS.

Allsunday - read carefully:

'You think "boys will be boys" means "boys will kill people because they're naturally prone to violence"? Really? I can't even believe you actually believe that.'

You are exactly right. That is exactly what I believe.
Given a gun, a male is likely to use it if he gets angry enough and/or is rendered irrational by jealousy, insecurity, helplessness, hopelessness, etc. as we've seen in all the cases.

And you cant erradicate anger. But you can erradicate guns.

Your arguments dont hold up to the fact that all the heinous school shootings we've witnessed over the last 10 years were not perpetrated by criminals, but rather students with anger management issues.

and no, we're NOT debating "why they feel the need to express themselves in such a manner in the first place" - we're debating why they have the OPTION to express themselves in such a way.

happy hunting.

Stephenthomson
your boys will be boys rational and the whole 'give him a gun and he'll use it'...wow that sounds alot like excusing the criminal and sounds very insulting to males.
Oh i guess males are just inherently violent and cant think or controle themselves. So what? I guess its not thier fault when they shoot someone...what's next? they cant help it if they assault, stab, hit, or rape someone too? I mean boys will be boys.. Gee i guess according to you men are too stupid to think for and controle themselves and are just primitive savages to be put in cages. Either that or the end result would be that everyone else (mainly women) just has to suck it up and take responsability for their so-called inherently violent nature. Gee maybe women should also start wearing burkas while we're at it.
Here's a thought...how about holding people, including kids ..accountable for thier actions, including bullying.

lol.

Maybe, just maybe, the kids who would normally brew on their feelings or attack their enemies with a fist fight on the playground after school have been exposed to the media sensations of columbine, VT, and the like. They think, "that's a possibility." Then we hear of something like this. It's not the guns.

It's not the security. It's the coverage these events receive. I foresee a new segment in health class, right after sex ed., called "shooting your classmates is not cool."

Philist -

"It's not the security. It's the coverage these events receive. I foresee a new segment in health class, right after sex ed., called "shooting your classmates is not cool."

I've got to agree with you there. Kids know that if they shoot up the school, they'll get showered with media attention. And if attention is what they feel they're lacking, well...

Stephen -

"Your arguments dont hold up to the fact that all the heinous school shootings we've witnessed over the last 10 years were not perpetrated by criminals, but rather students with anger management issues."

I thought such violence was a natural impulse for boys, and they simply can't help killing when given access to guns, as if they were mindless killing machines with no concept of ethics, morality, or personal responsibility! But now they have anger management issues? Now it's abnormal? Make up your mind.

And if you think my arguments don't hold up, you simply haven't been paying attention.

"and no, we're NOT debating "why they feel the need to express themselves in such a manner in the first place" - we're debating why they have the OPTION to express themselves in such a way."

No, apparently that's what you're debating. Unlike you, I don't think such mindless violence is normal, and would like to get at the cause of it. Unlike you, I believe we can have a peaceful society that has access to guns, because we used to have one and can still see other societies that function in such a manner today.

You can ignore the fact that we didn't have these problems historically, despite easy access to guns. You can ignore the fact that when gun bans have been put into place in other countries, gun crime skyrocketed. You can ignore the fact that there are thousands of boys in this country and others with direct access to guns who get angry on occasion and don't decide to kill whoever they're angry at because they simply know better. But these things are reality, and because of that, none of your arguments hold up. And because of that, I see no further reason to debate with you.

What is it that you love so much about guns? Why do you defend them so? Is it for your beloved "gun-related sports" and "shooting competitions"? What planet are you from? And are you so insensitive as to give shooting competitions priority over the safety of innocent civilians? get f*cking real.

My personal opinions about guns have nothing to do with anything I've said. You're either missing or ignoring the point.