Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Teen Age Angst

Well another school shooting in Maryland yesterday where the results while tragic pale in comparison to some of the others.

The shooter, a 17 year old boy died and the two people he shot will hopefully recover.

Many will feel that the fact that the violence was contained quickly and the shooter eliminated either by his own hand or that of the resource officer who confronted him shows that having armed defenders available is a way to contain gun violence in schools.

To some extent, although at this point we don't know if the shooter intended a rampage or just targeted the girl who he may have been angry at.

Still to call it a success when one teenager is dead and two others injured, even when the one who is dead was the perpetrator of a crime is sort of a pyrrhic victory.

One dead is better than 17 dead, obviously, but the easy access to guns is the reason he is dead.

Teenage boys getting upset at girls isn't a new thing, and if this turns out to be a jilted Romeo scenario where he was going to make sure it was him or no one, it certainly wouldn't be the first time.

However, what should have perhaps been a loud confrontation or silent moping turned deadly because of a gun.

Without the gun I imagine a depressed teen-age boy who would recover, an unharmed teen-age girl and a school that wasn't traumatized.

I don't know if he got the gun legally or not, all I know is that he got it and we had a tragedy that we wouldn't have had otherwise.




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