The bucolic community of Key Peninsula in Pierce County is wrestling with who exactly is responsible for keeping teenage boys from doing, or contemplating doing, horrible things with guns.
The Tacoma News Tribune reports on a community meeting last night where conflicting views came to the fore, following the arrests of three boys age 12 to 14 for allegedly planning a deadly shoot-em-up at Key Peninsula Middle School.
It was the first community meeting about the purported plot, which officials discovered April 7. Three boys, ages 12, 13 and 14, planned for months to shoot guns outside the school May 1 to prompt a lockdown of the building, then set fire to the school using Molotov cocktails, according to court documents. They would then begin shooting selected teachers and students, the documents state. Prosecutors have charged the boys with first-degree conspiracy to commit assault with a firearm. They are being held in Remann Hall juvenile jail in Tacoma.
One parent quoted in the article says it's very much the job of school officials to catch budding psychopaths before they bust loose, and one fruitbat blames the district's focus on state achievement test preparation for inattention to adolescent psychosis. A third parent (at the end) squarely puts the onus on parents, not the schools, to nurture sanity, safety and a healthy super-ego in their children. I'm with her, and as a staunch gun rights proponent believe such others who are also parents must vigilantly educate youths that firearms used by private citizens are for sport, and self-defense. Period.
Posted by Matt Rosenberg at April 19, 2006 12:08 PM | Email ThisOK, seriously. It is the parents, immediately followed by the parents who are responsible for their kids and teaching them right from wrong, morals, behavior, etc. In third place are the parents.
That being said, it is also the parents' responsibility to ensure any weapons they have around the house are safely stored and maintained, and if reasonable precaustions are not taken to keep weapons safe, parents should also be responsible for the consequences of actions by minors with these weapons.
Posted by: Fred on April 19, 2006 12:32 PMOf course those were the days that chewing gun in class got you sent to the principle, talking back got you sent to detention, and a more serious offense got a suspension which severely embarrassed your parents. The wild kids had a hot rod and hung out at the Tastee Freeze after 9pm.
When I got in trouble at school, I was in trouble at home. My parents didn't run down to the school demanding an apology for smacking by b*tt, my b*tt got a second round.
The line was in a far different place back then, and there were immediate and effective consequences for crossing the line.
Now days there are no lines, everything is okay if it feels good.
The purveyors of this non-sense are shocked when a kid without boundaries crosses a line?
That is the whole point of parenting, training a kid to stay within societal bounds. When a line is crossed at school, the parents need let it be known in no uncertain terms what is acceptable.
When a kid goes that far it is clear they were never yanked up short on the little stuff, the lines were never made clear.
Posted by: JCM on April 19, 2006 01:06 PMI guess I can (sort of) one up ya. My alma mater, Eatonville High School, apparently actually had a class where students could learn to make muzzle-loading rifles. Unfortunately, this was in the '70s WAY before my time there.
However, as late as 1995, we drove to school with our hunting rifles and shotguns in the back of our pickup trucks during hunting season.
Granted we weren't all model citizens but none of us went Columbine on folks (yet).
Maybe if these Key Peninsula kids were sent out to shoot nutria instead, we could solve two problems at once.
We should propose a muzzle loading making shop class for Seattle schools. Or maybe a gun smith course for Seattle Community Colleges.
Just to see the reaction.
Folks I know not that long ago carried rifles to school and back. Any rabbits spotted along the way went in the pot.
Posted by: JCM on April 19, 2006 01:46 PMNot only did we have rifle club, we could go out to Ft Lewis and check out rifles and get as much practice ammo 30, 30-06 and 308 as we wanted through teh DCM. The only stipulation was that we were to 'shoot up all we took' because there was paperwork req'd if we brought any back.
Posted by: JDH on April 19, 2006 01:46 PMMy how times have changed.
Posted by: MSRedneck on April 19, 2006 01:53 PMCaldwell huh!
Spent a lot of time there, dad's family had a farm between Middleton and Caldwell.
Mom's dad was Pastor of the 1st Baptist when it was on the corner of 10th and Cleveland (moved 30+ years ago), now out on Linden just before Kimball.
Posted by: JCM on April 19, 2006 02:08 PMThat is the most awesome thing I've heard in...30 hours. Although I can imagine that there were alterior motives that the US Army had for wanting young men to become proficient shooters and familiar with M-1 carbines, Garands and M-14's.
Maybe the folks down at Lewis should have a similar policy now. I bet recruiting would go up.
JCM,
I'm down with a program like that at S.C.C.C.P. Although rather than vocational arts, it would have to be under a cultural heritage title. I doubt they'd be allowed to make oppresive muzzleloaders like the Kentucky or Pennsylvania rifle used to exterminate our native peoples.
Probably would have to be Turkish or Mogul matchlocks. (I'd still take the class!)
One reason car jackings were such a problem in Florida is that the crooks knew that regular residents could carry a weapon in their vehicle, but people renting cars would not. So thanks to a former Florida licensing law, it didn't take long for the scumbags to target rental vehicles. It took too many tragic events before the lawmakers stopped requiring visible ID that a car was a rental.
For those of you reading this who are all about gun control, put stickers in the windows of your car and home telling the world you have a gun free household. This will allow the hoodlums to better choose their targets. It is extremely rare that these cretins just act without warning. The problem is a society that is failing to teach personal responsibility and consequences to our young people. And, yes, my kids have received basic weapons instruction through proper channels.
Posted by: Burdabee on April 19, 2006 02:31 PM
That's the term Ken Hamblin used to use when he had a radio show. I think it's a good one.
It's parents that teach children to respect firearms. No one else.
Posted by: Palouse on April 19, 2006 03:26 PMOr the rest of us can place one of the stickers in OUR windows and see if we get charged with hunting over bait!
Posted by: Hoplophile on April 19, 2006 04:47 PMI believe this is classed as ancient religious dogma, and therefore reject by modern secular leftist.
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.
Galations 6:7
The moral ambivalence and apathy of the left has created a generation of parasites that expect the government to provide responsibility and entitlement.
If you don't know what your kid is doing, and especially if your kid is planning to shoot up a school, it's your own damn fault. That's why parents are legal quardians until age 18. Parents are supposed to keep their kids safe from harm and keep others safe from any harm caused by their kids.
I'm sure that the knee-jerk on the Kitsap Penninsula will be strong to create another government program, etc. What a joke. The parents of these kids ought to be rigorously questioned and fined if there was any negligence which contributed to the delinquency of their kids.
No telling how many girls ended up in therapy after that comment and the advent of the mini-skirt a few years later.
Posted by: Huey on April 19, 2006 06:57 PM"and one fruitbat blames the district's focus on state achievement test preparation for inattention to adolescent psychosis."
Are you really quoting flying mammals or are you gratuitously mocking what was an already silly statement? I always enjoy reading your "journalism".
Posted by: John on April 20, 2006 10:58 AMwhile INside Remann Hall I learned a lot more, less sportsman-like skills and ended up spending many years as a drug and alcohol addicted criminal...I am now clean and sober and in school earning my California Alcohol and Drug Addiction Counseling Certificate...
But, the point of my post is that Remann Hall and other places of it's ilk are NOT where we want to send children to learn to be good...and that it's EVERYbody's responsibility to guide our children...parents, state, school, neighbors, community services, you and me...all together.
Rant Off
Posted by: Gayle on May 1, 2006 07:55 PM