It Could Happen Anywhere

    Sixteen children and one adult shot at a primary school before the assailant turned the gun and shot himself to death.
    Six students and two adults shot by a gunman in a high school before he could be stopped.
    One student and one adult killed by a 14-year-old dropout.
    Three students and a teacher wounded by a 17-year-old fellow student.
    A teacher killed by a 15-year-old student in his classroom.  The shooter tried to kill himself, but instead inflicted a wound that has kept him in a coma for five years.
    One student killed on school grounds by two other students.
    One teacher killed and another wounded by a gunman who had been expelled from the school years earlier. Before the shooting at the school, the gunman killed two co-workers at the factory where he had worked before being fired.
    Thirteen teachers and two students killed, ten other students wounded by a former student who then killed himself.
    One teacher killed and another wounded before a former student shot himself in the head.
    Three students killed and 6 wounded by a 15-yar-old fellow student.
    It could happen anywhere.
    And, apparently it does. Before making an assumption about the sorry state of America's schools, youth or violent culture based on the evidence above, consider that each of the school shootings listed did not take place in the United States.
    Each of them has happened in the past nine years outside the U.S. borders.
    Canada. England. Argentina. Yemen. Scotland. Germany.
    By no means should the concern for the most recent tragedy in an American school be lessened.
    The events of the past week in Red Lake, Minn. where five students, a teacher, a security guard and two members of a young man's family perished at the hands of a young boy who then took his own life need to be remembered.
    If it can happen in Red Lake, it can happen anywhere. It can even happen in schools around the globe.
    There is no easy answer to the question, "Why?"
    School officials, students, concerned parents and community members, legislators and law enforcement personnel can question the cause from dawn to dusk with few answers.
    If there is a resolution to that rhetorical question, the one which follows is no easier: "How can we prevent this from ever happening again?"
    Any school administrator worth his or her salt has the safety and security of students first and foremost in the operation of a school.
    And not even all that concern and effort, even in the age of metal detectors, surveillance cameras, security guards and drug-sniffing dogs--not to mention hours spent on gang resistance education, conflict resolution and counseling--can assure every child will be safe every minute.
    Sixteen-year-old Jeff Wiese's first target after killing his grandfather and companion was the school security guard. He was calculating and methodical. He planned and he plotted. And he acted.
    Where could the next school shooting be? Anywhere. Here in this town. In any of the towns in which I have taught.
    In her song, "If It Were Up To Me," folk singer Cheryl Wheeler lists dozens of reasons why young people might have crossed the edge of rational though and shot others at school.
    In the final lyric, she proclaims, "But if it were up to me, I'd take away the guns."
    Ms. Wheeler isn't advocating the elimination of guns, but she does profess a strong belief that young people have easy access to guns, and that access should be eliminated.
    It took a tragedy at Red Lake, Minn. to spur me to action. By the end of this weekend, all guns in my house will be locked safely away.
    No one is taking my sporting guns from me. But no one is using them without my knowledge, either.
    It could happen anywhere.

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This Page was last update: Wednesday, April 18, 2007 at 7:12:16 AM
This page was originally posted: 11/30/06; 7:11:57 PM.
Copyright 2008 David Friedli

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