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.