There's a whole lot of common sense missing in this. I wouldn't imagine there aren't already laws on the books adequate to deal with this situation. School policy will probably require the kid to be kicked out, held back, or put in some juvenile offender sort of sitch. . . . The parents are likely to face charges of several types, including I imagine negligent endangerment of school children. They could face proceedings to terminate their parental rights. . . . .
In days gone by, the kid would have been relieved of his gun, and his parents expected to discipline him. .. . in terms that would register the severity of the offense permanently perhaps. A good school teacher would have said. . . . "I can understand your anxiety, Bobby. . . . except what the hell do you think your classmates are going to do when you point this at their heads?"
The official action in this case should be on par with that which bearing any weapon and threatening other children with it would be.
a few pages back, I said the shooter in CT was a victim of our times. Let me explain that a bit. We have a lot of psychiatric drugs that are being shown by events like shootings to have in some people an effect of completely scrambling their moral reasoning. . . . the inhibitions that ordinarily prevent extreme or rash or violent behavior. The kid in CT, still a "kid" at 20, was on these drugs. His mother was worried, complaining to whoever would listen, that she was afraid, and that something was terribly wrong. He could not feel pain. Some disconnect was going on in his brain.
Yet we are mass medicating our whole population with these drugs, often over fairly trivial concerns. Rather than using restrained and reasoned disciplinary measures designed to reinforce consideration of actions and their effects and the responsibility of our kids to learn to treat others with respect.
I think imagining that we can legislate common sense while refusing to effectively teach moral personal accountability is in itself a social illness in those who think that's the way to go, which I would label "profound lack of common sense". And relying on medications which have side effects of impairing our mental processes of moral or whatever reasoning it takes to project a link between our line of contemplated conduct, and our responsibilities to others. . . . .is way out there. "overprescription of psychiatric drugs syndrome" is a mental illness that ought to be considered fair reason to terminate professional practice of psychiatry. . . . or school health counseling. . . .
kids pick locks. the CT shooter broke through the security doors. The local parents of the 11-yr old kid have, probably, lost their kids from this. . . . when the legal process grinds out it's verdicts. . .. and hundreds of thousands in legal costs, if they have it. They are probably bankrupt. There are already too many damned stupid laws, and the more laws you make, the stupider people will get. . . . you're not going to accomplish anything with this. . . .
CT has some of the strongest laws on the books of any state. The mom of the CT shooter apparently gave her life to try to stop her kid. Probably the next fifty or one hundred parents worried about a psychiatric patient kid on Prosac or whatever will take the guns out of the house, store them in a place the kid doesn't know about, leave the key with a friend in the next state. . . . . I mean if we weren't being dumbed down and strung out on medications wholesale to the effect that nobody has any common sense or personal reasoning anymore. . . .
