For Thursday, May 28, 1998 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 729 words

No second chances

I'm sickened by the shoot up in Oregon. It's a shame that many of the kids who commit such heinous crimes do eventually regret their mistakes, later, as adults in prison, when it's too late. That's the shame -- that it's too late. They've destroyed their lives because of stupid, impetuous acts as bruised teenagers, but don't realize it until they have grown up locked in a small, cold cell, watching the months and years of their lives drag by.

Sorry as they are, I wouldn't let them out. Their fate is tragic, but not as tragic as the fates of their victims. I caught a glimpse of a TV special interviewing a child-murdering child down in Texas. He was in for life without parole. He said, "All I'm asking for is a second chance." He wanted to be set free on the promise he would never kill another mass of people. Sorry as I am, I wouldn't let him out.

Next question: Can any town in America protect itself from a Kip? I don't think so. We can work hard to reduce the possibility, but we can't stop it, no more than we can stop earthquakes. There will always be Kips in the closet.

Lately, a lot of Kips have been popping up. The increase can be addressed with laws, reforms, and training, but ultimately we can't stop the random madman. He can spring up in any school in any town.

So, let's not dwell on that. Our focus must be on reducing the possibility with laws (gun controls), reforms (intervention), and training (to recognize warning signs and handle borderline cases).

The fact that these mass murders are committed in school is ironic as well as tragic. In one's life one will no doubt encounter many people who will act with malice toward them. People often do want to harm others. They want to rob, beat, or cripple them. Sometimes, murderous revenge is even justifiable. In school, however, teachers do not act with malice. We praise, reward, yell, scream, punish, fail, suspend, and even expel kids, but not with malice. We care deeply about our kids and hope to mold moral character. Sometimes we do that with punishment. For a bruised child, this isn't so obvious.

Many of the recent school tragedies, however, have been students shooting students. Teachers aren't in the picture. These killings are spawned from a different pool of concerns. Pubescent teens are caught up in a grueling, heartless struggle to establish prominence in their sexual pecking orders. Without many life achievements behind them to make them attractive, to lift them up, they resort to putting their competitors down.

Kids pick on each other. They give each other inferiority complexes that last a lifetime. Perhaps the ones who snap, the Kips, begin their downward spiral by thinking, "Hey, if my life is as insignificant as all the kids tell me it is, then I have nothing to lose."

Once I wondered: if we've always had guns, kids, and sexual pecking orders, why are we now seeing so much violence? What's new in the equation? News, movies, music, Internet, restless peacetime youth culture? Yep.

Instead of continuing to rant, let me re-focus on what we can do.

Other countries that had similar massacres (Scotland, Australia) immediately tightened their gun control. We watch this happen over and over again and do nothing.

So, do we now round up all the guns and grind them into plowshares? In America? Not likely. We've always had guns in our homes. I came from a family of hunters. No one hunts anymore, but they don't want to throw out those perfectly good guns. Besides, a heads-on battle against gun owners will take too long.

We need grass-roots action now. I'll offer slogans to the new campaign: Keep Guns from our Sons; Bigger Locks, Longer Talks; Turn It In and Win. A prize would have to go with that last one.

As teachers, we need to be extra sensitive to bruised kids. We must show them how much we love them as we hand out detentions and F grades. We must hold them back as friends, not foes.

As pubescent peers, we need to remember how easy it is to get hurt, and learn to be nicer to our friends. Everyone needs to know how special life is. We only get one.