“It’s just like deja vu all over again” — Attributed to Yogi Berra
“And you know something is happening, but you don’t know what it is. Do you, Mr. Jones” — Bob Dylan, “Ballad of a Thin Man.”
Yes, it’s happening again. We’ve been through this movie before, yet we still don’t really understand it.
A very public mass shooting incident occurs at a school and far too many students are killed. And the reactions of fear, debate and freak outs rear their heads in the aftermath, often in the same manner as in the past.
It is widely believed that the first school mass shooting that caught the attention of the nation was in Columbine, Colorado, in 1999, when two violent teen-agers turned on their fellow students and teachers and killed more than a dozen. In the days that followed, there were many crazy reports of bomb scares, threats and rumors of mischief and mayhem and, of course, debates about stricter gun control.
After Columbine, I remember all too well West Michigan schools shut down because of bomb scares. I also remember kids being caught and expelled after being told by officials, “We take these threats seriously” and “We take the safety of our students seriously.”
It’s been happening again in these parts. An Otsego High School student was arrested and charged with “making terroristic threats.” Wayland Middle School was emptied when a student deliberately pulled a false fire alarm. He was caught and is said to be going elsewhere to be someone else’s problem.
There also have been reports of trouble at places such as Manistee and Belding.
It is clear that besides the tragic and senseless deaths of young people, these shootings somehow are catalysts for irrational and stupid behavior, most often by teen-agers, but sometimes even by school officials who don’t want to be seen as “soft on terrorism.”
Almost two decades ago I recall a student at Lakewood High School being expelled for 10 days because he had two spent shotgun shells in the trunk of his car parked in the parking lot. It was one of those days when authorities brought in the drug-sniffing dogs, who caught a whiff of gun residue. The lad had been hunting not long before and had forgotten to remove all the spent shells.
Rather than use some common sense and slap the young hunter on the wrist and teach him a lesson about carelessness, administrators overreacted because they wanted to demonstrate to the public that they “take these things seriously.” But the punishment didn’t fit the crime.
An even more egregious example occurred in an elementary classroom where a 9-year-old girl foolishly wrote on a piece of paper that there was a bomb in the bathroom, but reconsidered, crumpled it up and threw it in the trash. It was retrieved by another student, who brought it to a teacher, who passed it along to an administrator, who took the whole matter before the Board of Education. The girl was sentenced to 10 days suspension.
Again, the punishment didn’t fit the crime, but officials wanted to prove to the public how tough they were on flippant behavior in times of fear and loathing in the classrooms.
School mass shootings seem to bring out the worst in us rather than inspire us to solve the problem. Some this time have tried to portray Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School activists as “crisis actors.” I’d like to find out who originated such dirty lies, declare them as enemies of America and have them locked up and deported. This process of blaming the victim by bearing false witness is deliberately done to divide an already divided nation.
Others attempt to discredit activist youth from Parkland, Fla., by saying they eat Tide Pods, shaming an entire generation by the ridiculous actions of a few.
Still others give us the tired old explanations of mental health being the culprit and offer unworkable solutions such as arming teachers. Essentially, all they’ve done is kick the can down the road, ignoring the wishes of the victims and I’m told a majority of citizens, who no longer accept not solving the problem.
Once again, documentarian Adam Curtis seems spot on with the observation that politicians have neither the will nor the ability to solve problems, they just provide excuses for the status quo because they benefit.
With a nod to Ranger Rick, but for different reasons, “The rotting of America from within continues…”
