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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 8, 2012)
August 8, 2012 One Nation, Under the Gun Leading the world in shootings W illiam A. C ollins Following that dark open ing-night screening o f the latest B atm an m ovie in A u rora, C olorado, it's tim e to contem plate yet again why A m erica's troubled young men kill so m any m ore people than their counterparts in the rest o f the w orld's m ore affluent nations. M ost w ealthy countries don't care m uch fo r h an d g u n s. T h ey have better things to do. A nd in Europe, fading tribal m em ories dating back to the law less M iddle A ges have, at last, largely receded. A m ericans are different. O ur most hazardous epoch is m ore recent. Popular W estern m ovies and TV dra by m as refresh robust m em ories o f the great frontier. W hile that heritage is fading, it still grips many o f us. A fter all, our voluntary and involuntary im m igrant ancestors w ere bold and strong. They sur vived death-defying trans-oceanic trips, som e o f them as cargo. Perhaps o u r frontier com plex can explain w hy so m any A m ericans believe that to properly protect o u r selves today, we need guns. 1 don't get it. R eality has changed. If there's a N ative-A m erican m en ace today, it's casinos. D uels are out. Slavery ended 150 years ago. But guns have sunk truly p ern i cious roots into our culture. In the first h a lf o f 2011, nearly 700 A m eri cans perished in m urder-suicides. A bout 90 percent involved a fire arm. O verall, we bum p ourselves off at the rate o f 30,000 per year using bullets. A total o f 110,000 o f us are killed o r w ounded. Plenty o f those w ounded are in bad shape too, w ith gunshot victim s accounting for 15 percent o f all spinal cord injuries. T h e re q u ire m e n t fo r a b a c k ground check reflects the desire by m ost governm ents to tam p dow n today's flood o f guns and epidem ic o f shootings. The N ational Rifle A s sociation, w hich is generously fi nanced by the gun industry, strenu ously opposes this civilized public safety policy. T hat dark duo has m any supporters. T ake A laska for exam ple. Sixty percent o f A laskan households ow n guns, and 20 out o f every 100,000 A laskans die annually from g u n shots. In H aw aii, by contrast, only 10 percent o f fam ilies ow n guns. A nd bullets kill ju s t three out o f every 100,000 H aw aiians each year. Yet the dark duo still argues that the solution to too m any gun deaths is to m ake sure that even m ore A m e ric a n s o b ta in th e se d e ad ly w eapons. It has persuaded the U.S. H ouse o f R epresentatives to force states w ith restrictive handgun law s to ho n o r concealed-w eapons p er m its from W ild W est states w hen their residents com e to visit. Sort o f like drivers licenses. O n e state th at w o n 't c are is Florida. In 2010, the Sunshine State p rohibited local governm ents from im posing any o f their ow n restric tions at all on gun-toting, invalidat ing a host o f existing m unicipal o r d in an ces. As usual, ironies abound, e sp e cially since T am pa has banned w a ter pistols from the streets outside the upcom ing R epublican N ational C onvention. T hus you will be able to pack real heat out there, but not y o u r super soaker. Fortunately, the Secret Service is in charge inside the venue. E spe cially after the A urora m assacre, the G O P faithful w ill be lucky to get in arrried with nail clippers. They'll have to conduct their m ayhem out front. OtherWords columnist William A. Collins is a former state repre sentative and a former mayor of Norwalk, Conn. Pushing Children Out of School A losing proposition for children and society M arian W right E delman In 1642m the M assachusetts G eneral C ourt passed one o f the very first law s about ed u ca tion in w hat w ould becom e the U nited States. E ducating ch il dren well enough to read and understand the law s o f the co m m u n ity was considered so critical that local selectm en w ere put in charge o f m aking sure it was done— and they w ould be able to tell c h il dren h a d n ’t been educated properly if they becam e “ rude, stubborn & unruly.” For generations to com e the p o w er o f education to develop good ch aracter and put young people on the right path rem ained a cornerstone o f A m erican thought about teaching o u r children. B uilding good citi zens stayed right up there w ith reading, ’riting, and ’rithm etic as a key goal o f ed u ca tion and w as one o f the early ju stificatio n s for providing public schools fo r all, as lead ers co n tin u ed to argue that if educating every child benefitted the w hole com m unity n eg lectin g e d u catio n w as d an g ero u s for ev eryone. T hom as Jefferson, a strong advocate for expanding educational opportunity across classes (at least for w hites), said in an 1818 letter: “If the children are untaught, their ignorance and vices w ill in future life co st us m uch d earer in their conseq u en ces than it w ould have done in their correction by a good ed u catio n .” A few decades later education refo rm er H orace M ann, considered the “fath er” o f the com m on school m ovem ent in A m erica, m ade a sim ilar point: “Jails and p risons are the com p lem en t o f schools; so m any less as you have o f the latter, so m any m ore m ust you have o f the form er.” by For m any m ore years teachers re m ain ed d eep ly resp ected co m m u n ity m em bers w ho w ere often revered for b e ing strong positive role m odels. T his was considered especial ly critical w hen teach ers w ere filling this role fo r children w ho otherw ise m ight not be getting it at hom e. But today som ething has changed. W e still say all o f the sam e kinds o f things about the pow er good schools and teachers have to radically transform a ch ild ’s chances in absent, truant, or tardy and is not com ing to school. W o u ld n ’t it m ake m ore sense to find ou t w hy they are not co m in g to school? D ata released this spring by the U .S. D e partm ent o f Education ’ s O ffice o f Civil Rights show ed in 2009 that 6.9 percent o f all stu dents received at least one out-of-school suspension; the o u t-of-school suspension rate w ent up to 14.7 p ercent for black stu d e n ts. T h e fin d in g s are e v e n m o re tro u b lin g fo r th e m o st serio u s sch o o l fo rm s o f d is c ip lin e : O v e r 7 0 p e rc e n t o f stu d e n ts in We 've now measured the connection between how much education a child receives and future success. We know the dangers o f dropping out, especially fo r the most vulnerable children and youths who have fewer high quality schools and resources than affluent children and fewer positive options fo r spending unsupervised time away from school. life. W e ’ve now m easured the connection betw een how m uch education a ch ild re ceiv es and future success. W e know the dangers o f dropping out, especially for the m ost vulnerable children and youths w ho have few er high q uality schools and re sources than affluent children and few er positive options fo r spending unsupervised tim e aw ay from school. P oliticians and celebrities do public ser vice ads urging ch ild ren to stay in school. B ut as soon as a child gets in trouble, too often the very first thing schools d o is to kick them out o f class. I ’ve never understood how it m akes any sense, fo r exam ple, to suspend o r put a child out o f school w ho is v o lv e d in s c h o o l-re la te d a rre sts o r w h o a re re fe rre d to law e n fo rc e m e n t are H is p a n ic o r b la ck . T h e s to rie s o f six -y e a r-o ld k in d e rg a rte n e r S a le c ia J o h n so n , w h o w as a rre ste d in h a n d c u ffs at h e r M ille d g e v ille , G a. e le m e n ta ry sch o o l in A p ril an d d riv e n to th e p o lic e sta tio n in a sq u ad c a r fo r th ro w in g a ta n tru m , an d D e s re ’e W atso n , w h o u n d e rw e n t th e sam e o rd e a l sev e ra l y e a rs ag o as a s ix -y e a r-o ld k in d e rg a rtn e r in A v o n P ark, Fla., w ere h o rrify in g re m in d e rs th a t e v en o u r y o u n g e st c h ild re n are at ris k o f b e in g p o o rly h a n d led . I find it hard to believe that one, tw o, o r three adults c a n ’t m anage a six-year-old during o r after a tem per tantrum w ithout calling the police and arresting them . S om e tim es I think we adults have lost o u r com m on and m oral sense! Instead o f educating children well enough so that they w ill not becom e “rude, stubborn, & unruly” w e now reject them at the first sign o f any d isobedience using w idely subjective catchall phrases and offenses like disrespect ful o r disruptive. M o st suspensions are for nonviolent o f fenses. T oo m any schools are pushing c h il dren into the ju v e n ile and crim inal ju stice system s to m ake them som eone e lse’s pro b lem . It should be little surprise w hen so m any o f the sam e children w ho are punished by being p ushed out o f school go on to becom e the sam e ones w ho drop out and stay aw ay fo r good. It should be even less surprising w hen m any o f the young people w ho drop out are the sam e ones w hose behavior w e continue to co m plain about and fear and fo r w hom we pay to b u ild co stly prison cells later. It’s called the cradle to school to prison pipeline. States are spending on average tw o and a h a lf tim es m ore p er prisoner than per public school pupil. I th in k this is a very dum b investm ent policy w hich hurts children and the n a tio n ’s future w orkforce. If giving all children an education still benefits an entire com m unity, and if not educating children still m akes it m ore likely their future “ignorance and vices” w ill “cost us [dearly] in th eir co n seq u en ces,” every tim e a ch ild is excluded from school by adults o r is chronically absent w ithout any actions to determ ine w hy, w e are failing the child and undercutting the im portance o f education. H undreds o f years after A m ericans first m ade that connection, w hat w ill it take for us to get it again today? Mahan Whght Edelman is president of the Children's Defense Fund.
