On January 18, 1993 at Grayson High School in Grayson, Kentucky, a 17-year old shot and killed a teacher and a custodian. Two weeks later, on February 2, 1993 in Amityville, New York, a 17-year old high school student shot and killed one student while wounding another.
In May 1994, a 10-year old, claiming that his classmates had taunted him, shot and killed a fifth grader. On January 25, 1995 at a grade school in Redlands, California, a 13-year old boy shot his principal in the face with a shotgun. Later that year, on October 12, 1995 in Blackville, South Carolina, a 16-year old high school student shot his teacher in the face before turning the gun around and killing himself. Just one month later, on November 15, 1995, a 17-year old student at Lynnville High School in Tennessee shot and killed a 16-year old girl and a 58-year old teacher with a shotgun.
In early February 1996 in Moses Lake, Washington, a 14-year old junior high school student armed with two handguns, a hunting rifle and 78 rounds of ammunition killed a 49-year old teacher and two 14-year old students within 15 minutes. A year later in Bethel, Alaska, a 16-year old high school student shot and killed two and wounded two others.
On October 1, 1997 a17-year old killed a former girlfriend, another student and wounded six others after a shooting spree at a high school in Pearl, Mississippi. Less than three weeks later, a 21-year old student at a high school in Norwalk, CA shot and killed two students. On December 1, 1997, a 14-year old left three girls dead and five wounded at a prayer meeting at a high school in West Paducah, Kentucky.
At a middle school in Jonesboro, Arkansas on March 24, 1998, two students, ages 11 and 13, shot and killed 4 students, a teacher and wounded 10 others. Just over one year ago, 2 teen-age gunmen massacred 12 students and one teacher at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.
This past Tuesday, in Mount Morris Township, Michigan, a 6-year old boy brought a .32 caliber semiautomatic handgun to his first grade class and shot and killed a 6-year old girl in front of his teacher and 22 of his fellow classmates.
This is a horrifying record of the tragedies that have occurred over the past decade in our country's schools by our country's youth. According to President Clinton on Tuesday, "The accidental gun death rate of children in American is nine times higher than that in the other 25 biggest countries combined. Combined. "This frightening statistic, combined with the tragedies of the past week and the past decade, should ring loudly in the ears of every senator and representative in Washington who is too consumed with partisan and ideological conflict to create and enforce effective legislation that addresses the problem of gun violence among youth in this country.
True, several pieces of gun legislation were passed last year. However, the fine printed language of these bills reveals that they are mostly political. They do little to eliminate gun show loopholes or to require mandatory child safety trigger locks, both of which could perhaps have prevented many of these killings.
While every presidential candidate is busy planning their strategies and gearing up their campaigns for the next few days leading in to Super Tuesday, perhaps they should take a moment to discuss this issue. There is no question gun control and youth violence is a complex issue that concerns not only the mechanics of registering guns, dealing with assault weapons, and researching safety technology, but one that also speaks to a fundamental breakdown in the American family and among America's children.
That a 6-year old child could commit such an atrocity begs the question, what has he seen and been exposed to in his short life to motivate such an action?
In the past 10 years, too many children have been killed and have been robbed of their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Surely, when the Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment of the Constitution, which protects the right of American citizens "to keep and bear Arms," they did not imagine a world where children would be bearing arms themselves and killing other children.
