Another School Shooting and We’re Still Ignoring the Obvious

Tragically, there was another school shooting at another American high school, today.

At approximately 7:45am on Friday morning, a student opened fire in an art class in a Santa Fe (Texas) high school.

Sheriff Ed Gonzalez indicated at a press conference that the death count was likely to fall between eight and 10.

He said one person is in custody and a second one has been detained following the shooting.

“One male is in custody. And then a second one, again, was a person of interest. Both are believed to be students here at the school,” Gonzalez said.

Houston-area media reported the school went on lockdown around 8 a.m. after someone entered the campus carrying what appeared to be a shotgun and opened fire, a student told ABC13.

In fact, at this time, reports are that nine students and one teacher have been killed.

The nation has not yet worked through the pain and grief of February 14, 2018, when 18-year old Nikolas Cruz walked into Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida and opened fire, killing 17 people and injuring more.

In fact, that particular case kicked off a nationwide maelstrom, with Parkland student survivors becoming central figures in the anti-gun movement of the left.

Marches, speeches, town halls, boycotts – all the stops were pulled out, in order to put the pressure on lawmakers to reexamine the existing gun laws, and the efficacy of the Second Amendment.

Kids like David Hogg, foul-mouthed and arrogant, were made media darlings overnight.

You can tell by his social media presence that he’s a typical teen boy, as well. An ounce of praise from those who see him as a useful tool for their gun-grabbing cause has inflated the usual teen cockiness to near-cataclysmic levels of arrogance.

And no matter what he went through as a survivor, the facts remain that this kid is a bully.

None of this is to make light of the trauma those kids went through on that day. They have every right to feel what they feel. They have every right to express what they think.

Even David Hogg.

The problem is that adults are using these kids as political tools. They’re saying to give these kids a voice, with some even suggesting that we lower the voting age to allow teens to be a more active part of the process in this nation.

There are some important details being overlooked, in regards to school shootings, going all the way back to Columbine (and before, actually).

Liberal lawmakers and activists want to turn over the direction of the nation to teenagers, but the overwhelming majority of school shootings are being committed by – you guessed it – kids.

I did a random search regarding school shootings since the 1999 Columbine tragedy, where 18-year old Eric Harris and 17-year old Dylan Klebold, social outcasts, entered their high school in Littleton, Colorado and proceeded to wreak havoc.

Twelve students and one teacher were killed that day. Many more were injured, before Harris and Klebold ultimately committed suicide.

The largest school shooting since Columbine was the April 16, 2007 Virginia Tech shooting.

A disturbed, 23-year old student, Seung-Hoi Cho, walked about the campus that day, killing 33 students and faculty members in two separate attacks. He eventually committed suicide.

The second largest attack since Columbine was the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

On December 14, 2012 20-year old Adam Lanza killed his mother in their home, took her guns, traveled to the Newtown, Connecticut school, then proceeded to kill twenty first graders and six adults.

He killed himself as police were arriving.

Lanza and Cho were among some of the “older” shooters, or at least, old enough to no longer be counted as teens.

There have been 224 shootings classified as “school shootings” since Columbine. Quite a few of those shootings didn’t actually happen inside a school.

A January 2018 incident happened in the parking lot of a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania school, after a basketball game.

Another incident in Forest City, Iowa being counted as a “school shooting” involved a man in a truck firing a pellet gun at a school bus (injuring no one) and shattering a window.

Out of those 224 listed incidents since Columbine, however, over half have been committed by someone 19-years old or younger.

When you begin weeding out those incidents that are clearly not the textbook definitions of “school shootings,” such as parking lot fights or incidents involving school buses, that “half” estimate goes up, considerably.

Many of the shootings appear to be gang-related. Some of the kids involved, like Nikolas Cruz, had prior behavioral issues.

Then there were the bullied kids, the outcasts, and those who felt pushed to the limit.

With that in mind, I would ask kids like David Hogg, what did you do to try and create a more welcoming community in your school, before these incidents?

Nobody is blaming the survivors of school shootings, or the victims, either.

What I am saying, however, is that I remember what high school was like, and little has changed. Kids can be very cruel to those they see as weaker or unpopular.

There’s a food chain in the high school ecosystem, and if you’re not at the top, you can expect to be bullied or pushed.

Insensitivity, lack of empathy – these are the things that breed a toxic mix of anger and hopelessness in the minds of hormonal youth.

Are we now expected to turn over the direction of our nation to a segment of our society who may not possess the emotional maturity or world experience to really understand what they’re pushing for?

Not if we’re smart, we won’t.

The solution to school shootings is both practical and spiritual.

The practical solution should be predicated on the notion that gun free zones only matter to law abiding citizens. Those with ill intent don’t care about those nifty “This is a gun free zone” signs. They prefer “soft targets,” because, believe it or not, they don’t really want to risk being shot, themselves.

Secondly, more focus needs to be on identifying potential problems with bullying, or those kids otherwise seen as “outcasts.”

You’re not going to make every kid get along. That’s not human nature. There does need to be a focus on creating an environment of peer-support, however. Just telling kids to behave isn’t enough. They expect adults to say things like that.

Kids have to learn respect, kindness, empathy, consideration, and fellowship.

It’s not just about what kind of example we’re setting for them, but what kind of atmosphere they’re creating for each other.

And as we speak, today’s Santa Fe shooter has been identified.

He is 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis. What will we find out about young Mr. Pagourtzis in the coming days?