I posted yesterday about a young man who was bullied by other students in his school so badly that he felt backed into a corner, so he brought a gun to school and wanted to use it to scare the principal into doing something about the bullying.
The young man was sentenced to life in prison for the shooting.
I find it sad that this young man is going to jail. I don’t feel this way because I think he doesn’t deserve to go to jail. It was monumentally stupid of him to grab a gun and take it to school and think that it would change anything. Guns don’t solve problems. The thing is, when school officials don’t act on what students are telling them, students often have no alternative but to lash out at the source of their pain. This means resorting to violence in one form or another. This shooting is just as much the fault of the school as it is the fault of the student, and could have been easily avoided.
The comments on yesterday’s post were interesting to me, because I see that there are people out there who care about this issue just as much as I do, but it is more complex than I make it out to be in my posts. There are many mitigating factors that teachers and staff at schools have to deal with, but I still firmly believe that everything starts with a zero tolerance policy on bullying. The school environment needs to be a safe place for children to learn. Children who are stressed because they’re afraid of getting a swirly during passing periods aren’t learning much.
Take the time to read the comments in yesterday’s post and add your own thoughts, and while you’re doing so, spare a prayer for this young man.
