Shooting By 6-Year-ls A Simple Issue
To The Reader’s Forum:
The Jan. 19 P-J ran an AP article titled, “Shooting By 6-Year-Old Raises Complex Cultural Questions”. I disagree – the issue of the shooting is rather simple. The basic facts are: parents bought a handgun; parents permitted the child access to the handgun at home; the child brought the gun to school: the child shot a teacher. My analysis is that the parents were negligent and should be held accountable, that is, charges filed against them and removal of guns from their possession. It’s really a simple issue.
The child, the teacher and, perhaps, society are secondary victims inasmuch as were it not for the negligence of the parents the shooting would not have occurred. That’s where the issue becomes more complex – what to do with the child, how to deal with the teacher, and how society should respond to the shooting.
The cultural complexity can be explained by one sentence written by the author, addressing a “head-scratching” statement of one Floridian, “That may be because it sits outside what people are accustomed to.” Society has become too “accustomed” to the number of guns Americans possess and what guns do to people. The NRA seems to recognize that fact and “buys” the votes of a minority of public officials who protect guns from meaningful regulation in spite of a clear majority of citizens who want more regulation of guns.
Many people will promote false arguments that the “gun” issue is more complex than it is, and the more time that passes without meaningful regulation at the national level the more they will argue “complexity”. Yet, all the while more and varied guns will be manufactured, more shootings (and victims) will occur, and society will become more “accustomed” to and, therefore, more likely to stop caring (or care less) about gun violence.
Just because many claim a “right” to own a gun doesn’t mean a person must own a gun. Society, or “culture”, can address gun violence with fairly simple responses, but it requires the “will” to change what we are “accustomed” to and national, meaningful, regulation of guns is a good start. Society owes as much to ALL the victims of gun violence.
Paul L. Demler
Jamestown