Kids Killing Kids

[Kamaji]

Kids Killing Kids

Red flags are one potential solution to America’s school-shooting problem.

Peter Van Buren
Apr 10, 2023

Americans ages eighteen to twenty account for only 4 percent of the population but 17 percent of murders. The problem is not just the guns. It is the young (almost always) men who wield them. Any possible starter solution rests with the child shooters, not the firearms.

There's a pattern inside those sordid statistics, with some 70 percent of school shootings since 1999 having been carried out by people under eighteen. The median age of school shooters is sixteen. Whether it’s because they are left out, bullied, teased, or angry at some slight or offense, it is kids killing kids.

Since these killings tend to be "local," typically the shooter and the dead share a racial and/or social-economic background, leaving "white supremacy" as a cause in the trash alongside heavy metal and Satanism. There have been at least 554 school-shooting victims, with at least 311,000 children exposed to gun violence at school in the U.S. since the Columbine High School massacre, all spread across 376 schools. The frequency of shootings has increased, with a surge of forty-six incidents in 2022, the highest in any year since 1999. The safest year was 2020, when most schools were closed and parents needed only to worry—pointlessly, it turned out—about Covid taking their kids.

Since it's not the guns per se but young men who are to blame, more traditional gun control is unlikely to make much of a difference. Already under the federal Gun Control Act (GCA), shotguns and rifles, and ammunition for shotguns or rifles may be sold only to individuals eighteen years of age or older. All other firearms can be sold only to those twenty-one years of age or older. Licensed sellers are bound by the minimum age requirements established by the GCA regardless of state or local law. However, if state law or local ordinances establish a higher minimum age, the gun seller must observe the higher age requirement.

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But as we approach the "what should we do" portion of the discussion about guns, here is perhaps the most important statistic: In cases where the source of the gun could be determined, 86 percent of the weapons were found in the homes of friends, relatives, or parents. Where else could an elementary school student get a gun after all? As mentioned, federal and many state laws limit long gun sales to eighteen-year-olds, with many setting the bar at twenty-one. There is no evidence that children get their guns at gun shows. They get them at home.

There are two kinds of parents in these cases, those who fail to treat their guns responsibly and those who fail their children. One avenue of exploration would be much tougher penalties for adults who fail to secure their guns and ammunition, in line with penalties for selling drugs to minors or child neglect. States could consider trigger-lock or other safety-oriented giveaways, and make purchasing such tools a requirement for buying a gun. Of course some people will fail to use the safety tools, either on purpose or by accident, but the process of protecting ourselves needs a long-term solution in spite of short-term failures.

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Source:  https://www.theamericanconservative.com/kids-killing-kids/

[SZonian]

If one looks at what is happening to our youth today, the "woke" mob, one should realize that what many lack are simply coping skills.

Parents, educators, communities, etc. are failing these kids by denying them the ability to develop proper coping mechanisms to many of the situations they will find themselves in.

I am still quite a skeptic of "Red Flag" laws simply because they can be abused.