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Responsibility remains elusive
(by Dave Lange - March 08, 2012)
COUNTY LINE, BY DAVE LANGE
Responsibility remains elusive
Whenever horrific acts of violence occur, as one did last week at our own Chardon High School, we human beings feebly attempt to make sense of them. We cannot make sense of the senseless.
Whenever such killings occur in schools or other public places, we wonder how we can prevent them from ever happening again. We cannot protect everyone, everywhere at every moment.
Whenever such murderous acts are carried out with guns -- as they almost always are in this nation where the right to bear arms grows by the day -- there are people who line up on the fringes of a never-ending debate.
On the one side are those who believe guns alone kill people and that more needs to be done to keep them out of the hands of criminals, children and mentally unstable individuals. There even are some who believe the government should keep guns out of the hands of all citizens. But never have I heard anyone of substantial political influence speak such Second Amendment heresy.
On the other side are those who believe people alone kill other people. Often their answer to gun violence is more guns. Arm the airline pilots, arm the store clerks, arm the pharmacists, arm the bank tellers, arm the teachers and, by all means, arm newspaper columnists who might make readers angry.
I remember well the day in July 1991, when two men walked into the Bainbridge gun shop owned by Richard Zeleznik at about 10 a.m., coldly shot him in the head and walked out with a cache of automatic weapons. Mr. Zeleznik's own guns could not prevent his murder. Eventually, thanks to good police work and able prosecution, the killers were caught and sent to prison.
Lost in the cacophony of media coverage from Chardon these past two weeks was a report from nearby Claridon Township, where an errant bullet fired from a mile away nearly struck Brenda Mills in the head as she walked in her front door at 1:30 p.m. Feb. 19. If the bullet had been just inches lower, there was nothing that her husband, Leonard Mills, a onetime gun owner and supporter of the right to bear arms, could have done to save her. At this writing, no one has been charged in this near tragedy, although it's illegal in Ohio to discharge weapons off your own property.
It may be true that Mrs. Mills was saved by the grace of God. For reasons that we cannot understand, it is a fact that the earthly lives of Chardon High School students Daniel Parmertor, Russell King Jr. and Demetrius Hewlin were not spared by God. Absolutely false are claims by hateful letter writers that God has been tossed out of the public schools. According to Christian belief, God is everywhere.
The one individual who has been hailed as a hero in the Chardon High School shooting, although he rejected the characterization himself, is study hall teacher and assistant football coach Frank Hall, who chased the gunman from the building and then returned to console terrified students.
Mr. Hall was unarmed. There is no way of knowing whether anyone else would have died, if he or other staff members had guns in their possession. But we do know that putting firearms in the hands of teachers would not have prevented a disturbed student with access to a gun and with the element of surprise from shooting five of his classmates.
It often is said that, with the great freedoms we have in the United States, there also comes some responsibility. Where is the responsibility?
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