What Do We Tell the KIds?

We have a national tragedy...again. That's one thing you can always count on in this country because we have made a decision about what part we want guns to play in our lives.

I personally don't believe that the Second Amendment covers guns for everyone (that word "militia" just doesn't seem like a citizen-in-the-home kind of word) but this is what our Supreme Court has said and it's the law of the land. That said, I do believe that gun owners should be held very responsible for anything that happens using the gun in their home by anyone who lives in the home. I also don't believe anyone but a law enforcement officer needs a 30-bullet magazine.

What's fascinating is that the sale of Glocks has now gone up with rabid people fearing the government will cut off their guns. Funny how people worry about losing guns but not losing more people. From the AP:

One-day sales of handguns in Arizona jumped 60 percent on Jan. 10 compared with the corresponding Monday a year ago, the second-biggest increase of any state in the country, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation data. From a year earlier, handgun sales ticked up yesterday 65 percent in Ohio, 16 percent in California, 38 percent in Illinois and 33 percent in New York, the FBI data show, and increased nationally about 5 percent.

But I'm not bringing this up to debate hyper-escalated rhetoric or talk radio or FOX news or anything of the sort. We all can figure out in the days and weeks to come what role, if any, outside forces had on this young man. But he did this and no one else. On the face of it, he seems mentally ill.

But one media person (and I've forgotten who) said, what about the kids?

What has Mesa Verde Elementary School in Tucson told their students and parents? How do you explain to kids that your friend on the student council went to Safeway and ended up dead? (It looks like the principal wrote a letter talking about coming together as a community and details of the funeral but oddly, nothing about what parents might tell their children. The school district has no tips either but is protecting the staff and children at the elementary by refusing media access to anyone.)

How do we explain mental illness to our children without scaring them but also to protect them? If we say "he's crazy", then any odd or off-beat behavior might make a child think someone was crazy. But we also need to tell our children to be watchful and get away from anyone who makes them feel scared.

It's interesting because I don't know many people who own handguns. (I know a fair amount of hunters.) I wonder if you live in a state or community where guns are commonplace (you can walk around in Arizona openly wearing a gun), do kids worry that one of those people could be crazy?

Do we tell our kids it couldn't happen here?

I remember telling my sons, after the Virginia Tech shootings, what I thought they might do to protect themselves if someone came into their class with a gun. I also remember apologizing to them because I never, ever in my childhood worried about being shot. No one brought guns to school, fights were mano a mano and if someone said they were going to kill you, you didn't believe them.

What do we teach our children about human behavior and how to read people without putting fear into their lives? (I will recommend Protecting the Gift by noted security expert, Gavin de Becker.)

I ask all these questions because I don't know but I am ashamed that as Americans this is a conversation we have nearly every 6 months.

I grew up on the border of Arizona in the district that Representative Giffords represents. The Sheriff in Pima County is right; the rhetoric is way racheted up. It was not this way when I was growing up (and remember, this is the home of the ultimate conservative, Barry Goldwater, who famously said, "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!")

This is not the Arizona that I know and love.