Thursday, April 14, 2011

MN.......We're One of the Safest States? Another one:

The thought passing through my mind was.......how did this kid ever get the idea that pointing a loaded hand gun at another student, for whatever reason, but most importantly to resolve conflict, was acceptable?  Is it a failure in the home, a failure of our media / entertainment that promotes this idea as somehow powerful and successful, or.......something else?

Kids should be taught to use thought, language is thought, to express their emotions, to use ideas, for all purposes, including where appropriate as a weapon.  A gun (or a knife, etc.) used as a weapon, used to give them a sense of power, is disastrous.

While there is no guarantee that some violence might have resulted, like a couple of 13 year olds failing to use ideas and language, and instead resorting to say.....a fist fight, it is the access to weapons which ramp up the danger that exacerbates any problem to one that is potentially deadly (rather than ludicrous).

This specific school was the site of deaths from a student with a gun not all that long ago, the fall of 2003.  There is no way that a local student would not be aware of this event, and what a tragedy it was for the individuals and for this community. 

What adult let this gun get out of their control?  Our standard for responsibility tends too often to be the minimal legal one; not a higher standard of the practical or ethical criteria for it.  If we have no legal requirements that define what is required, and impose penalties, then no adult will be held accountable for this action with a dangerous, potentially lethal weapon by a child - an older child, but still a child.  There are signigicant differences in the brains of children, and more dramatically in the brains of teens in this age range, in comparison to adults, as well as in experience, which affects their judgement.  It is for these reasons access to weapons should be more, not less, restricted to children and teens. (I love any post which gives me a chance to involve neuroscience; it gratifies my latent geek.)

Making schools gun-free zones will never prevent every single instance of a kid bringing a gun to school; but it can reduce the frequency, and it gives the teachers, principals, and other staff the greater power to do something about it when an incident like this occurs.

7th Grader accused of bringing gun to school
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
KARE11.com KARE11.com
updated 4/13/2011 10:16:50 PM ET 2011-04-14T02:16:50
COLD SPRING, Minn. -- A seventh-grader at Rocori Middle School in Cold Spring has been charged with second-degree assault after prosecutors alleged he pointed a loaded handgun at another student.
The St. Cloud Times reports the 13-year-old boy was charged Wednesday in Stearns County. Because he is a minor, few details of the case are public.
The incident happened before 9 a.m. Tuesday. Students told the principal about seeing a gun. She opened the student's locker and found the pistol. She found ammunition in a backpack.
Rocori Superintendent Scott Staska says the boy is expected to be expelled.
In 2003, two students were shot and killed by another student at Rocori High School. The shooter remains in prison.

10 comments:

  1. " Is it a failure in the home..."

    Yes!

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  2. Please explain how a gun free school zone would prevent ANY instance of a firearm being brought onto school property.

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  3. Your silence on the subject is more eloquent than any argument against victim disarmament zones that I could ever make. Thank you.

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  4. Anonymeathead:

    A gun free school zone is of course like a cheap padlock on a garden shed, only going to keep sensible, decent people from doing something stupid or criminal.

    Stripping the parents of their rights to gun ownership and putting them on probation while they complete a course on using their friggin' heads for something besides haircare product demonstrations would help, too.

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  5. Anonymous, I don't know whose silence is speaking volumes to you. I suspect those are the voices in your head, but I'll try to answer anyway.

    Some percentage of you law abiding gun owners is really guys who are unfit and irresponsible. Some of them obey the rules right up until that moment when they crack. Gun free zones eliminate that possibility. That's a direct benefit.

    There are indirect ones too. When the shit does hit the fan, it's been shown time and time again that a lawful gun owner can rarely intervene in time to stop anything. But, he certainly can make matters worse. This cannot happen in gun free zones.

    Also, gun free zones eliminate the possibility of theft and improper private gun sales which in the rest of the country feed the criminals with weapons.

    Overall, gun free zones are a no-brainer and only a biased and closed-minded gun extremist who hates the thought of being inconvenienced even for the Greater Good would deny it.

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  6. Condescending and sophomoric as always, Mike. While you receive high marks for your usage of various ad hominem attacks (you're obviously an expert on those), there are so many errors in your comment that I don't even know where to begin.

    it's been shown time and time again that a lawful gun owner can rarely intervene in time to stop anything. But, he certainly can make matters worse.
    Please provide actual proof of lawful gun owners being unable to stop criminals and, no, the use of BC/CSGV/VPC/Joyce/MAIG studies doesn't count. Further, provide proof of lawful gun owners making matters worse. I'm sure the first thing you'll clutch at is Tucson, but unfortunately for you, the gun-carrying good guy exercised excellent judgment, even if he was too late to stop Loughner.

    gun free zones eliminate the possibility of theft and improper private gun sales
    Actually, gun free zones increase the possibility of theft (and negligent discharges), by forcing law abiding CCers to unnecessarily handle their firearms, and then leave them in a relatively unsecured location (their cars). Further, victim disarmament zones have absolutely nothing to do with private sales. Why would anyone transfer a firearm in a school/courthouse/etc when they can just drive down the block to the Walmart or 711 parking lot?

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  7. Some of them obey the rules right up until that moment when they crack. Gun free zones eliminate that possibility
    This assumes that the "law abiding gun owner that suddenly snaps" waited to do said snapping until after he unholstered his gun and left it in his car just off school property. Furthermore, while law abiding gun owners "just snapping" is fairly rare (I think the figure is around 80% of murders are committed by people with criminal histories), the subset of law abiding gun owners who are CCers is even smaller still. Even if you believe the gun grabbers' stats, 300 murderers out of six million CCers is around 0.005%. On the other hand, most of the mass shootings in the US over the last couple of decades have taken place in schools. Despite this obvious discrepancy in statistics, as well as my other points, you think that "gun free zones are a no-brainer." Perhaps it is you who are the "biased and closed-minded... extremist" my friend.

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  8. Mikeb302000:

    Perhaps it IS you. We can't say whether it's Anonymous, because we don't know who the coward is.

    I am very convinced of the courage and honesty of people who hide behind "Anonymous" when they comment--NOT.

    I wonder why it is that gunznutz are so adamant that "Gun Free Zones" don't work, while they seem quite comfortable with having the local, state and federal LE agencies protect them and their property with hundreds if not thousands of laws and regulations that make theft, rape, homicide and a host of other things "illegal". Oh, that's right, the only one they care about is the one that affects their GODGIVEN RIGHT to have weppins handy, everywhere and always.

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  9. I am very convinced of the courage and honesty of people who hide behind "Anonymous" when they comment--NOT.
    This is rich coming from someone who isn't exactly posting under the name on their birth certificate. Spare me the self-righteous indignation, Dummocrappie. Oh, and it's called the internet, btw; perhaps you've heard of it? Everyone is "anonymous." Anyways, Mike and Guy tend to get their panties in a bunch when people start throwing around IRL names on here.

    I wonder why it is that gunznutz are so adamant that "Gun Free Zones" don't work, while they seem quite comfortable with having the local, state and federal LE agencies protect them and their property with hundreds if not thousands of laws and regulations that make theft, rape, homicide and a host of other things "illegal".
    This might be the dumbest thing you've come up with yet, and you've had some doozies for sure. People who carry a firearm do so for proactive SELF protection, which is in addtion to the reactive protection provided by the police and our legal system. We just generally object to nanny statists like yourself trying to tell us what to do with our lives the rest of the time.

    JMB's Ghost

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