Northeast Ohio has been in the national news for the wrong reason since yesterday, after some kid walked into Chardon High School and shot five other kids, of which three have died. It's a sad, shocking event, and I just can't imagine having to be a kid, or parent, in that situation.
Naturally, people near and far are trying to reconcile the insanity of it all. Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do. You can't really assign blame, you can't find a solution, and you can't change what's done. The only rational explanation is that sometimes fucked up people do fucked up things. It's not a satisfying conclusion at all, but then again, no conclusion would be.
Immediately, the debates begin about everything ranging from gun control to religion in schools. Again, as dissatisfying as it might be, they're all irrelevant. A screwed up kid did something awful, and that's all there is.
If we look at statistics, we can actually see that tragic events like this are less likely than they were when Columbine went down, though that's no consolation to people in Chardon. What frustrates me is how so many people over the age of 30, and it gets worse with age, cast aside kids for various reasons. "Kids today are..." Personally, I don't think kids are any different at all. If they are, it's because of parents.
My hope is that people who choose to procreate understand the responsibility they have. No one says you have to coddle your children, but you do need to guide them so they can understand how to deal with the difficulty of life. When parents fail to do that, communities need to find ways to help pick up the slack. I've seen coaches, teachers and volunteers make a huge difference in the life of kids, and they would never write them off as substandard humans.
The shooter will have to live with the consequences of his actions, and ultimately, I think he's old enough to understand that only he can be responsible for what he did. But as we learn more about him, I'll also wonder what his family, friends and community could have done differently as well. The harsh reality might be that there was nothing they could have done, but I think a great many people let him down before he let himself down.
I hope the kids at that school can make some sense of the senseless crime, eventually. This is not the way to be forced to grow up.
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