The Other Gun Lobby
- Thread starter moe
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This determined crowd turns the conversation around on the most stridently pro-life conservatives: What are you doing to save the lives of America's children from gun violence?"
Funny that should be asked. School shootings came up as a topic with my church [youth] discipleship class. It was impacting them far more than I thought it was. We ended up discussing it for 2 weeks (1.5 hrs each).
We decided that there is a profile to the school shooter. He is a male, white, teenager, loner, depressed (probably on medication), and no father in the home. We further decided that we could absolutely identify that profile with our schools, and as a Christian, it is our duty to make them no longer fit the profile. The two things we can do as classmates to remove them from that profile is to befriend them, and help them to no longer be depressed.
Funny that should be asked. School shootings came up as a topic with my church [youth] discipleship class. It was impacting them far more than I thought it was. We ended up discussing it for 2 weeks (1.5 hrs each).
We decided that there is a profile to the school shooter. He is a male, white, teenager, loner, depressed (probably on medication), and no father in the home. We further decided that we could absolutely identify that profile with our schools, and as a Christian, it is our duty to make them no longer fit the profile. The two things we can do as classmates to remove them from that profile is to befriend them, and help them to no longer be depressed.
The other adjectives seem to fit from what I've heard but not having a father in the home, I don't typically hear one way or the other if that's the case with school shooters. I wonder if that would bear out on analysis. I assume the FBI and such generate profiles for such people.
I've said many times on this board that the answer to stopping gun violence won't have anything to do with guns at all. You'll never know if these actions stopped somebody from committing a school shooting ... but regardless of any proof of results you will be improving the lives of many people, including the ones that are reaching out. You can't be self-absorbed and still do that, you have to have empathy to do that, and doing that won't allow them to turn into little narcissistic ********.
Kudos to you.
That's an interesting link, but correlation doesn't mean causation. With divorce rates at over 50% it would stand to reason that the majority of kids come from divorced families, so it wouldn't be a surprise that the majority of kids doing anything, good or bad, comes from a divorced family.
I'm also not saying that it's not a cause, just saying that you can't just draw that conclusion without more study.
I still commend what you are doing with the kids in your church ... these comments have absolutely nothing to do with that.
That was just part of the profile, but nothing we could do anything about. We've talked about it longer here than we did in discussion.
We aren't doing it for commendation, and we certainly can't study the results as to what if we didn't do it. But as Christians, we're supposed to help the weakest of the weak anyways, regardless of school shootings.
THE, that sounds like a very good investment of your time and the kids seem to react. Thank goodness we had an individual like that in my youth. He was also youth minister in Presby church.
Could you lead them into some discussion on where the school administration is failing. Some of the things I found extremely good back in my day to bring kids out and inner act with others. Recess and lunch hour in grade school. Everyone in my small two room elementary school participated in something or just sat and chatted and watched others. Both girls and boys played together on a team or separately in some kind of competing game.***** Today, grade schools are getting one hour per week for recess****** Really? And maybe 20 minutes for lunch????
In HS we had PE every day. Kids received a grade in PE. Normal "A" for just participating. You didn't have to be the best to get the grade, just get out there and inner act. I do not recall any kid complaining about the class. I think HS kids have one or two periods per week now. Team sports practiced the last period or two. That is all after school hours, and transportation is impossible for kids who live twenty- thirty miles from facility. So they are eliminated. It is a damned crime the way students are treated today.
Just a thought to ask the young people if the administration couldn't make it easier for students to befriend other students on a daily basis.
And to my way of thinking, that represents the most constructive aspect of your group's effort; doing something because it's right, rather than because you're trying to "get" something from it..
Well done
ray:I have family in school administration, and from an in-school perspective their hands are tied to unbelievable degrees. Teachers, principals, county board members, they are all incredibly frustrated in general. The school administration at any particular school isn't the place where change is going to happen, you have to go to at least the county level if not the state level.
I'm not sure I totally agree that recess and PE are harbingers of good will. My experience was that there was more bullying and isolation in those environments than anyplace else. However, I agree with you in another way and think it has been a major mistake to eliminate the physical activity to the levels they have. Kids have a lot of pent up energy, at least I know I did (even later on into adulthood, rugby and other sports were good outlet for pent up hostility), and if it can't be released some way it's just going to build up. Let them get out and run around.Then they also cut music programs and other things like that as well. The more you cut these extracurricular types of activities, the less chance a kid has to "belong" to a group. Even if it's 4 kids in a chess club, that's something.
So, the problem is "recess and PE"......or, is it the manner in which recess and PE are being managed by the school ??
Please don't misunderstand how I'm asking you this question; I think I'm trying to figure out if the problem is behavioral and focused more toward the kids themselves, or more institutional on behalf of the schools who don't (or refuse) to recognize the manner in which they manage their buildings (and their student body) accentuates the problem . Of course, as is so often the case these days) it's often easier to identify a problem than arrive at a workable solution.
Even if a given school was prepared to make......what's the number.....ten (and I'm just making up that number) teachers/aides available to monitor recess periods, there's obviously no guarantee that solves anything in itself. And then, what about those other breeding grounds for intimidating behavior, rest rooms, where comparable Staff monitoring strategies might very well lead to "invasion of privacy" complaints by students (and worse, often whiny parents) ?? Of course, none of this addresses what's becoming arguably an even greater problem, cyber-bullying.
In any event, as a starting point, I think THE is really onto something with his Youth group discussions. It certainly seems that student input/intervention represents the most logical means to address the isolation and (resulting) bully problem......and by admittedly-extreme extension, possibly impact the issue of school shootings. Of course, you're asking kids to "get involved", which takes way more to do in reality than might appear in theory in a meeting room.
So, how do we mobilize kids.....and perhaps more importantly, enough of them......to make a real difference ??
Understand it's been 35 years since I've been in grade school, it's possible kids were meaner then and we just dealt with it. It's very possible that, while recess and PE might not be the conduit for stronger interpersonal relationships, that they would still provide a net positive experience for kids to just blow off energy. I didn't mean to suggest that recess and PE would be a problem (rereading how I wrote it, I can easily see why somebody would draw that conclusion) in itself, only that it isn't always the friendly happy-go-lucky environment as originally suggested. I don't think you need that much supervision with it at all, but I do believe that the kids need it. Even in HS we had PE every day, and because I was trustworthy and got good grades my study hall teacher let me go to the gym and play basketball for study hall also.
One thing you touched on is the cyber-bullying. This is one thing that's vastly different than when we grew up. It used to be that if a kid wasn't in your class and didn't live in your neighborhood that you didn't have to deal with them at all. However, with electronics and social media it can be very difficult for a kid to complete escape from somebody that they have an issue with.
I agree with your assessment of what THE is doing, and I do think that is a huge step in the right direction. How do we mobilize kids? I'm not sure if it's working or not but I see stuff all the time encouraging kids to reach out to the loners and to befriend the kids getting picked on. Change doesn't happen overnight so it will be years before we see what kind of long term affect those things have. However, the attempt is certainly out there to get kids mobilized as you suggested.
Bullying was never a problem that I remember. We were involved in doing something, and a teacher normally participated for a little exercise or leadership to demonstrate how to. Teachers were always visible and/or involved. If not and something happened, the teacher broke out the board of education when they found out about the happening.
In HS it may have been a little different. We had 7-12 and that is a bit of size and maturity difference. The equalizer there was that everyone had an older cousin to break up anything. After we got up to 17-18 years old, we were less apt to pick on someone of our own size. So it took care of itself as we got older and close to graduating.