MARCH 23, 2018, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE A5
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Where are the adults?
By ERIC A. HOWALD
I’m fi ne, I tell myself while follow-
ing an employee of the Salem-Keizer
School District through the currently
empty halls of White-
aker Middle School in
the minutes before stu-
dents plan to walk out of
class and join a nation-
wide protest and memo-
rial for 17 teenagers and
adults who were gunned
down at a Florida high
school.
It’s March 14, 2018, one month to
the day after the last, devastating mass
shooting at a school in America.
My daughter, Ameya, is a student
here and planned to take part in what
was happening. She told my wife and
I that she wanted to be part of the
walkout a week ago, neither of us said
anything at the time. Two days earlier,
I asked her to sit down and tell us why
she wanted to participate.
“It could have been my friends,”
Ameya said, and started retreating into
herself as if on defense.
That was enough, I told her. I
would support her, but she needed to
understand that what she planned to
do was a political act and not just an
excuse to leave school for a few min-
utes against the wishes of adults.
I don’t know how often average
parents worry about safety at school,
but it is an ever-present, low-level
concern in my life. If this violence ar-
rives in Keizer, I will need to be on
the front lines of it talking with sur-
vivors and the families of victims. I’ve
worked with and around the students
of this community for more than a de-
cade. If a single student ends up dead
on a Keizer campus, there is a better-
than-average chance I might know
them, or one of their siblings, or their
parents, or maybe their best friend. I’m
nearly certain it’s only a matter of time.
I’m fi ne, I repeat to myself as the
students make their way out the class-
room to the exits. Then I see who is
leading this particular group of stu-
dents: Paris, an eighth grader at the
Whiteaker. Paris and one of her co-
organizers lead the group down the
hall. When the students falling in line
behind her start to get louder than
they should, Paris tries to hush them.
Paris and Ameya have attended the
same school since fi rst grade. Seeing
the confi dence and surety evident in
her leading of this group makes me
feel pride in the young woman she is
becoming.
Then a wave of shame rolls in as
she passes. In eighth grade students
are 13 or 14 years old while adults
in this country have chosen to do
nothing for a generation after each
and every mass shooting – at schools,
workplaces, malls, clubs and churches.
We’ve throw up our hands and con-
tend there is simply nothing we can
do because a document written more
than two centuries years ago says gun
ownership of nearly any type is a right
bestowed upon anyone older than 18.
We’ve come up with all manner of de-
fenses for the continued use of deadly
force, but the last time I checked there
was no asterisk by the Christian com-
mandment “Thou shall not kill.”
It’s okay, I’m fi ne, I tell myself as I
follow the students outside into the
parking lot where they gather in a
large mass. I continue to take pictures
as what looks to be about a third of
the school fi les out the doors. Some
students have signs with the names of
the victims from the Florida shooting.
The ones who are obviously just there
to miss out on class group together at
the back and talk in outdoor voices.
The ones nearer the front stand and
whisper quietly waiting to see what
happens.
Paris picks up a megaphone and
launches into reading names and de-
scriptions of the lives that were snuffed
out in Florida. I learn later that she and
the other organizers read through the
obituaries and social media feeds of
all 17 victims to compile brief biog-
raphies. She makes it through four or
fi ve names before her voice cracks for
the fi rst time. Tears follow soon after
handing off the megaphone.
The megaphone passes from the
next young woman to yet another
that I know and was at my house as
recently as a few months ago. From
her it goes to the fourth student, Alys-
sa. Martin Duque Anguiano, 14 at the
time of his death last month in Florida,
was her cousin.
Last summer, I drove Ameya, Alys-
sa and another friend up to Portland
so they could see Shawn
Mendes perform at the
Moda Center. They were
aware that a concert rep-
resented a potential dan-
ger to their lives and asked
me whether they should
be worried. This was only
two months after an Ari-
ana Grande concert in the
United Kingdom became the stage for
a suicide bomber. I did my best to reas-
sure them but, in retrospect, the weight
of the question escaped me at the time.
At what point did we agree to trade
our children’s sense of safety as they
make their way through the world for
the “right” of some people to choose
to carry assault-style weapons? We
vote on lesser trade-offs every year.
I am certain some who are read-
ing this are already picking apart the
last lines. They’re going to write to
me and tell me how little I under-
stand about guns because I didn’t use
the right terminology. I don’t care. I
fi rst fi red a rifl e at a pie tin when I was
13. A few years later, my uncle took
me out to hunt squirrels and I thrilled
over shooting and killing my fi rst one.
Seven years later, the third person in
my life killed himself with a gun, he
was 13. I haven’t held a gun since and
don’t intend to ever again. At any rate,
this isn’t an issue of vocabulary, it’s
about human lives.
I fi nish talking with Alyssa and get
Paris’ attention for a quick interview
before she heads back inside. Before
Paris is able to make it over to me,
Ameya comes up from behind, hugs
me and begins weeping.
This. Is not. Fine, I think. I free my
arm from Ameya’s hug and put it
around her shoulder and pull her in
tight. Alyssa sees her distress and comes
over to both of us as tears begin to
stream down my cheeks.
“I’m just glad it wasn’t one of you
guys,” Ameya says between sobs.
“I’m glad it wasn’t you, too,” Alyssa
says.
How do you explain survivor’s guilt to
someone in eighth grade?
Before I know it, I have an arm
around both of them and I tell them,
the way adults always do, that we are
going to make this better. The girls re-
cover and walk away without another
word. I’m left feeling like a fraud in
a puddle of my own lies and wiping
away the streaks on my face.
If I was one of the kids today, I
would be disgusted with the idea of
growing old. There are things that
could be done to limit the volumes
of blood in our streets – background
checks on every gun sale, mandatory
liability insurance for gun owners, in-
creasing the age for gun purchases and,
yes, better systems for engaging those
who with struggle mental health prob-
lems – but adults choose to look the
other way or resign ourselves to wish-
es of the well-armed militias. We raise
our hackles for a brief span of time
or hashtag a tweet and pretend we’ve
done our hard part in the struggle un-
til the next mass slaughter when we
put off talking about solutions because
that would be “a knee-jerk reaction.”
How can we expect the children
of this country not to become cynics
when the adults refuse to speak truth
to monied interests? Silence begets
helplessness begets hopelessness, and I
know that isn’t the lesson I want my
daughter and her friends to learn.
The problem is where to start. I
can give money and my vote to can-
didates who tell me they will fi ght for
gun control, but I don’t expect that to
make a difference. We tell people every
vote on a ballot matters, but the reality
is that the vote you cast with your dol-
lar matters more in this country.
How many parents have to lose
children before anything actually
changes? How many size small body
bags will we let pile up in the mean-
time?
We shouldn’t be fi ne with asking
either question. But, in the 48 hours
since the walkout, the only conclusion
I’ve come to is that we’re all fi ne, until
we’re not, and the toll for our inac-
tion is being levied on our sons and
daughters.
moments
of
lucidity
(Eric A. Howald is managing edi-
tor of the Keizetimes.)
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Salem, Oregon
Tough talk on guns gives way to reality
By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS
During a February White House
discussion on school safety, President
Donald Trump singled out Sen. Pat
Toomey, R-Pa., for not including a
provision to raise the legal age to buy
a long gun from 18 to 21 in
a bill the senator had spon-
sored. “You know why?”
Trump schooled Toomey,
“because you’re afraid of
the NRA, right?”
Last week, Trump saw his
own words thrown back at
him after the White House
released a list of actions to
improve school safety that
does not include raising the legal age
to purchase a long gun—a measure
opposed by the National Rifl e Asso-
ciation.
Trump had signaled his willing-
ness to consider an increase in the age
for legal purchases of long guns in re-
sponse to the mass shooting at a Park-
land, Florida, high school that left 17
dead. Such a rule could have prevented
the 19-year-old shooter from buying
the AR-15 he turned on students and
teachers.
Instead, the White House action
sheet calls for a federal commission on
school safety to be chaired by Educa-
tion Secretary Betsy DeVos that will
make recommendations in a number
of areas, including “age restrictions for
certain fi rearm purchases.”
But the action sheet did not in-
dicate a specifi c age, such as 21, or
stipulate which fi rearms a different age
would apply to.
The administration also pledged to
help states pay for fi rearms training for
teachers and reiterated its call to im-
prove the background check and men-
tal health systems. However, the White
House did not include the language
from Toomey’s 2013 bill to expand
background checks for gun shows and
online sales.
Democrats were quick to pounce
on Trump’s apparent retreat.
“After signaling ... (that)
he would be for raising the
age of purchase for assault
weapons from 18 to 21, a
modest measure, President
Trump backed off—say-
ing he would leave it to
the states and the courts
to decide,” Senate Minor-
ity Leader Chuck Schumer
railed.
“That’s a cop-out, and we know
that,” he added. “After indicating sup-
port for universal background checks,
President Trump makes no mention of
closing the dangerous gun show loop-
hole or internet sales loophole.”
A Sunday night tweet showed
Trump moving away from his Febru-
ary statements: “On 18 to 21 Age Lim-
its, watching court cases and rulings
before acting. States are making this
decision. Things are moving rapidly on
this, but not much political support (to
put it mildly).”
Asked if there is anything in the ac-
tion plan that the NRA does not like,
White House Press Secretary Sarah
Sanders responded that an age-limit
increase is on the list of ideas that “will
be reviewed” to see if they are best
done on a federal or a state-by-state
basis.
Sanders also told reporters that
Trump “hasn’t backed away from these
things at all.” Instead, the White House
is “focused on things that (they) can do
immediately.”
On March 9, Florida Gov. Rick
Scott signed a bill that raised the le-
the
opinion
of
others
gal age to buy a long gun in the state
to 21, banned bump stock devices and
extended the three-day waiting peri-
od for gun purchases to include long
guns. It also would allow some teach-
ers to carry guns.
“Today should serve as an example
to the entire country that government
can—and must—move fast,” Scott said.
The NRA fi led a lawsuit against
Florida that same day. “Florida’s ban is
an affront to the Second Amendment,
as it totally eviscerates the right of law-
abiding adults between the ages of 18
and 21 to keep and bear arms,” the
NRA said in a statement.
The day before the meeting with
Toomey and other lawmakers, Trump
told a group he had lunch with top
NRA offi cials. “If (the NRA is) not
with you, we have to fi ght them every
once in a while,” he said. “That’s OK.”
The legal age of purchase is not as
clear-cut as the recent debate suggests.
Individuals ages 18-20 may purchase
rifl es and shotguns from a federally
licensed fi rearms dealer, but not hand-
guns. It also is legal for individuals ages
18-20 to possess handguns and long
guns and to purchase them from un-
licensed dealers.
“The only thing you cannot do at
age 18 is purchase a handgun from an
FFL,” or federal fi rearms licensed deal-
er, noted Ken Klukowski, an attorney
with the American Civil Rights Union
who used to work for the NRA.
Klukowski said he thinks Trump
instinctively supports the Second
Amendment, but he “starts a pub-
lic discussion by just expressing out
loud his initial thoughts on a matter”
-- thoughts that in past White Houses
“would be run through layers of vet-
ting before anything was said publicly.”
(Creators Syndicate)
Do ads make teens drive recklessly?
At what age does the human brain
mature?
Under most laws, young people
are recognized as adults at the age of
18. However, emerging science about
human brain development informs
that most people do not reach full ma-
turity until the age of 25. During their
fi rst two decades of life,
humans are readily infl u-
enced and highly impres-
sionable.
Fairness in assessing
the growth and develop-
ment of interests among
young American men has
held many among them
attentive to and fi xated
on automobiles. Nowadays, this opin-
ion writer would argue, there are often
as many young American women also
quite interested in automobiles. The
use of the automobile by many young
men and women is to attract persons
of the opposite sex.
Aside from human nature and the
birds and bees, one of the ways Ameri-
ca’s young people are effective at short-
ening their lives is by using the auto-
mobile in ways as to test the limits of
physics and related control of powerful
machines. I was taught to drive by my
father who offered many admonish-
ments from my beginner stage to solo
use of the family car. It was then my
turn with my daughters. I never had an
accident but that outcome was a case
of pure luck and, while my daugh-
ters returned home —once each—
with minor damage to family cars, but
no loss of life, it’s a hunch good luck
also smiled their way.
So, let’s get right down to brass
tacks regarding kids and cars. The
reader may be transfi xed on the idea
that their little darling is gentleman-
or lady-like behind the wheel of any
auto he or she drives, family car or
kid-owned. However, almost every
friend of mine back in time was just a
bit, mind you, inclined to show off or
test limits with near misses or actual
fender benders as outcomes. The
worst instance from my teenage years
was the death of a best friend who
was not driving but riding
in a car going too fast to
negotiate a corner. That ac-
cident resulted in a head-on
crash that cost him his life, as
well as two other teens and
the mother in the other car.
Nowadays,
factor-in
modern day television ad-
vertising.Recently,
there
was one during the Super Bowl by
Chrysler-Fiat applauding the abil-
ity of their Jeep Wrangler to ford a
stream at high speed, tearing up the
creek bed, with possible roll over into
water deep enough to drown anyone
knocked unconscious by the impact.
Bad form for a commercial millions
of young Americans watched during
the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, the same
company, Chrysler-Fiat, offers a TV ad
where a caravan of six Challenger and
six Charger cars drive at top speed on
a twisty, narrow, curvy mountain high-
way with steep cliffs on both sides. Are
they nuts?
Not wishing to unduly criticize
one car company, there are more ex-
amples of this sort of throwing cau-
tion to roadside winds among several
current TV commercials for new cars
exampled by Honda, Land Rover and
several others. In fact, it’s unlikely the
average TV viewer will get through an
evening’s viewing without seeing one
or more of them. And, of course, no
one needs a graduate degree in psy-
chology to conclude that the younger
set are seeing these ads and being in-
gene
h.
mcintyre
fl uenced to try the same feats of death
and life-long injury caused by them.
Again, the human brain commonly
does not fully mature until our species
is in his and her mid-twenties. Re-
garding car advertising: why don’t the
car manufactures devote their prof-
its to making commercials that don’t
encourage speeding and irresponsible
behaviors. Rather, how about using as
a template from the latest Alfa Romeo
ad where two cars spin their wheels on
an ice rink and turn thereby to display
their attractive lines. Safety features on
modern cars are also nothing to sneeze
at.
Most of our allies do much better
than we do at establishing and main-
taining community-like living con-
ditions. Instead of looking so often
to how much money can be made
by selling products, it would do the
American population better to consid-
er how well we can serve each other,
especially, in the matter under consid-
eration here, the children and youth of
our fellow American citizens.
Shared responsibility for the wel-
fare of every American would likely
decrease the violence in the U.S. It
would predictably also advertise prod-
ucts and services that show and vouch-
safe their value and importance for
transportation when used sanely and
without harm not only for he who
drives but as well for he who hap-
pens, in the instance of automobiles, is
out there too and can be harmed by
recklessness and negligence. Bottom
line: If every American communicated
his concern over advertising messages,
change would come as it always has
when more and more of us speak up
on behalf of reforms. During our his-
tory, Americans have accomplish great
things.Why not this?
(Gene H. McIntyre lives in Keizer.)