Perhaps we can install metal detectors in suburban schools.
Just a suggestion. Remember how shocked many of us felt when metal detectors began to appear in big-city high schools in the 1980s?
Remember the wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth? Remember the talk of “pathologies” among the urban poor?
Well, guess what? The urban youth homicide rate has dropped dramatically in the last few years. Nationwide, homicide rates have declined since 1994, after surging upward since the early 1980s. That surge and decline was almost entirely made up of youths, aged 14 to 24, with guns, according to crime statistics studies by juvenile violence specialist James Alan Fox of Northeastern University.
But during the same period, sensational small-town school shooting tragedies have exploded.
It was easy to dismiss as a fluke the 14-year-old boy who walked into a junior high algebra class in Moses Lake, Wash., and opened fire with a hunting rifle, killing a teacher and two students.
That was back in February, 1996. It has not been as easy to dismiss similar episodes in Bethel, Alaska, a year later; in Pearl, Miss., in October; in West Paducah, Ky., in December; in Jonesboro, Ark., in March; in Edinboro, Pa., in April; in Fayetteville, Tenn., on May 19 and in Springfield, Ore., on Thursday.
Again there is much wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth.
But, curiously, there has been very little talk of pathology. I guess it is easy to label people as diseased by pathologies when they don’t live in the same neighborhood we do. When they do live in our neighborhoods–clean, well-lit, well-fed–we tend to look for other reasons, especially if the reasons don’t involve us.
As a result, we have a political-media dance in which reporters turn to gun-control groups, whose leaders decry the proliferation of guns in our society.
Then they run over to the National Rifle Association, whose leaders decry our failure to enforce laws already on the books.
And the most aggravating fact is that they’re both right. We have too many guns floating around this country and too little enforcement of laws already on the books.
That paradox has led Georgia state legislator Mitchell Kaye to propose yet another law. He wants at least a few teachers to carry concealed weapons at school. He was inspired partly by the assistant principal in Pearl, Miss., who used his own handgun, which he kept in his truck to hold the 16-year-old boy who was arrested in the Pearl killings.
“They know that all the adults in these school gun-free zones are unarmed, and that’s the problem,” he said on CNN.
Teachers packing heat? Cool. Call it the “OK Corral” remedy.
But, if the prospects of showdowns before biology class don’t appeal to you, you might consider some important lessons from cities that have begun to get a handle on teen gun violence.
Boston offers particularly promising signs of hope in a program called Operation Cease Fire. Since it took hold three years ago, Boston’s youth homicide rate has dropped to its lowest level in more than 30 years. It has had only one homicide of a youth under 17 during that time.
Operation Cease Fire took laws already on the books regarding juvenile curfews and enforced them. Probation officers got out from behind their desks and became more involved in the lives of troubled kids before their offenses became major.
At the same time, clergy, teachers, police, city officials and community leaders were enlisted to meet with teens and parents to intervene in drugs, gangs, domestic abuse and other situations that lead to youthful lawbreaking.
Small-town communities used to take that sort of social latticework for granted. But times have changed. Rural life has become urbanized. It has become more difficult for parents, educators and others to spot the warning signs youths give us.
In Oregon, as in the other tragedies, students and friends have come forth after the fact to describe how the suspect, Kipland Kinkel, had issued threats, brought a weapon to school, tortured small animals and “liked to blow things up.” Now everyone is pointing fingers to explain why he fell through the cracks of the school’s intervention system.
Those are good questions to ask. I have a feeling the answer won’t be to pass more laws. I suspect it will have something to do with paying closer attention to our kids, instead of hoping they can raise themselves through years that can be life’s most emotionally confusing period.
We don’t know what makes some kids go over the edge, but we can help ease them back from the edge. When we have to talk about metal detectors and arming teachers, it’s already too late.
