AFTER Columbine, almost two years ago now, there seemed to be a refrain in all the talk following the shooting: "Maybe now they'll be forced to do something about gun control." We watched congressmen propose gun control legislation. We watched as Congress didn't pass it. We watched as our hopes died and the same thing happened that had happened after all the previous school shootings: absolutely nothing. We had hoped it would be different this time. Columbine, we thought, was so big and so horrific that it would finally be something that would be impossible to ignore. We thought wrong.
Now, nearing the two-year anniversary of Columbine, we find ourselves in the same situation. When 15 year-old Andy Williams opened fire at Santana High School in Santee, California two weeks ago, killing two of his classmates and wounding 13 others, the story was all too familiar. Young white boy, picked on by his peers and ignored by his parents, chooses to vent his rage by grabbing some guns from the family arsenal and opening fire in his school. Same sad story, but with the difference that some of us waiting for school shootings to spur some kind of gun control measures have gotten tired of holding our breath.
Instead of waiting in vain for Congress to get a clue about gun control, energy should be concentrated on something that we may be better at changing - namely, the thing that makes these boys feel so desperate and alone in the first place.
Congress isn't going to do anything about gun control despite compelling statistics: In 1994, firearm injuries were the second leading cause of death for young people 10 to 24 years of age and the third leading cause of death for persons aged 25 to 34, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A pattern emerges when comparing the rates of children killed by guns in the U.S. versus countries where there are strict gun control laws. In one year, the number of children killed by guns in various countries were as follows: none in Japan, 19 in Great Britain, 57 in Germany, 153 in Canada and 5,285 in the U.S. (www.handguncontrol.org).
Gun control laws obviously make a difference, but still nothing happens. The issue will be on the cover of newspapers and newsmagazines for a few weeks, and then it'll disappear again in the face of protests for Second Amendment rights and the force of the deep-pocketed National Rifle Association lobby.
The boys who have been responsible for the 10 school massacres that have taken place in the last three years have shared a few common characteristics. They have all been misfits, bullied by their peers and living with parents who knew little of what they were doing - and, if they knew, didn't much care. In Andy Williams' case, after his parents' divorce he rarely saw his mother and lived with his father, who, according to reports, seemed uninterested in spending time with his son or even simply looking after him.
Another factor that remains the same over all the school shootings is that they all took place in large public schools, which isn't a coincidence. Massive school shootings just don't happen in small private schools where students come into contact with teachers often, develop relationships with them and generally feel like they're a part of a community that actually cares about them individually.
In contrast to the support that private schools can provide for struggling teenagers, the situation in public schools can be pretty dismal. Schools are overcrowded. Teachers are overworked and underpaid - in California, where the Santee shootings took place, they're paid two-thirds the salaries of prison guards. Counselors are spread too thin; they're responsible for several hundred students apiece.
In this environment, it's no wonder that kids like Andy Williams feel lost. Many teachers in public schools don't have the luxury of time to get to know all their students, let alone provide them with guidance if their parents aren't able to give it to them.
Andy Williams, Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris and the others all were lost boys, and their schools weren't able to help. They were all mired in anonymity, wandering crowded school halls, enduring taunts and rightfully feeling that no one cared. They were all full of despair that, for whatever reason, turned into a desire for destruction.
In the absence of any hope that desperate boys will ever have a hard time finding guns, we need to make sure that they don't become desperate in the first place. They need a school environment that won't push them over the edge, but pull them back from it. They need smaller schools and class sizes, more guidance and more support. They need to feel connected to a community that cares about them so that their alienation will end before their despair helps to make them murderers.
(Laura Sahramaa is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. She can be reached at lsahramaa@cavalierdaily.com.)
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