My Facebook Thoughts

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Ho Hum, Another School Shooting

This morning I had intended to read the news about the Cleveland student who shot 4 people and then killed himself. The thing that kinda surprised me was, I had to dig for the story. Granted we are in Chicago and the shootings happened in Cleveland, but doesn't this warrant front page real estate?

The top story for the Sun-Times, Get that teacher an apple. Good stuff bravo. The Cleveland story was on the front, but down in the middle.

The top story for the Chicago Tribune, Stone could run the team. Steve Stone, former Cub announcer, is a possible general manger for a potential new owner. Whatever! The Cleveland story cannot be found on the front page.

This bothers me because that means a kid going into a school and shooting people is no longer an important story. Kids and guns should be a very important issue.

I don't like guns. Guns kill people. (Please don't give me the people kill people reply.) To often there will be a tragic event involving a gun. People will have marches, petitions will be signed, maybe a brief boycott or two. Change will be demanded and change will be promised. Days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, months turn into years and nothing changes.

Then another tragedy.

People will have marches, petitions will be signed, maybe a brief boycott or two. Change will be demanded and change will be promised. Days turn into weeks, weeks turn into months, months turn into years and nothing changes.

I know people kill people. I know many times the people are disturbed and have many many issues that lead them own the path of death. I'm just saying, why make available to them the tools of death.

I don't have any answers. I just don't want what happen in Cleveland, Virginia, and all the other places to be forgotten.

A tragedy happens when we forget to learn from our past.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yet you let Jimmy take pics with toy rifle in hand. Should your hate of guns start there?

Mark Ploch said...

Trust me, the whole toy gun thing is a major confliction for me. We had toy guns as a kids, yet we are fine.

Anonymous said...

Our times were much different. Today, kids have "real" guns whereas our's were toys. I say if we avoid the child gun play they avoid the want of it as they get older.

Mark Ploch said...

True. However, when you keep something away from anyone they want it more. It is very difficult.

twocheapcents said...

I still say that learning from tragedy, mistakes, history, whatever, doesn't mean removing temptation, it means improving methods of educating the world at large. Requiring more training, waiting periods, fine. Restricting guns entirely? Not the answer. Every citizen has the right to bear arms, but I think the problems come in when they don't consider that they should bear them responsibly.
I grew up knowing exactly where my father's and grandfather's guns AND ammo were, and they were well within my reach, but I was raised with respect for them as weapons, AND respect for other people. I never even considered touching them without permission, and we were allowed target practice with old cans and such on my grandparents' farm. We shot handguns of my cousin's in safe areas, at safe targets. It was very serious business, not play. It's all about how kids are raised, and in this day, most kids are raised with little respect for anything or anyone. As long as it pleases THEM, it's all good.

Mark Ploch said...

Jen,

I wish I knew the right answer.