The "My Take On School Violence" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading page after page of comments in our local newspaper that were written by local high school and middle school students; the future voters in the United States.  I'm sure you can imagine what they are telling the adults about the violence in their schools.  My background in this entire issue goes something like this:  I taught high school for almost 35 years and for five years of that time I coached the rifle team.  It was much different than the rifle teams of today where they use air rifles for competition.  My teams used .22 long rifles with live ammunition.  No one thought any different in using live ammo and all I did after a match or practice was lock the door to the range which was under the high school stage.  I was also a hunter for a few years as a youth as well as during college.  I stopped that practice when I was narrowly hit by a bullet from another hunter who mistakenly thought I was a deer.  Scared the crap out of me so I gave up hunting.  And, for many years and years I was a member of the National Rifle Association.  Even had a bumper sticker as well as a window sticker on my car.  But, all what I just shared with you was back in the late 1960s till the late 1970s when I gave up coaching due to a hearing loss contributed to being on the rifle range most every day of the school year.  I still own a rifle, but not a handgun.  I do not object to persons owning hand guns or rifles, as long as those weapons are not military style weapons which were developed for warfare.  Now a bit more background for you to peruse: The Revolutionary War was fought from April 19, 1775 to September 3, 1783.  During the Revolutionary War the weapons that were used were muskets, shotguns, single shot pistols and even hand-to-hand combat with swords and knives.  And, if you haven't heard yet, the United States won the war!  Then on December 15, 1791 the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, relating to the right of people to bear arms, was enacted as part of the Bill of Rights.  I just can't believe that anyone who signed that piece of legislation realized that one day people would be able to fire a rifle that can spew out bullets faster than you can talk.  In 2013 it was reported that over 4,000,000 United States citizens owned the AR-15 automatic weapon.  Do you really believe that our founding fathers knew that in the future there would be weapons made and owned that could kill as quickly as that when they constructed the 2nd Amendment.  I DON'T THINK SO!!  And, my guess is that just about everyone reading this story today doesn't think so either.  I guess you can see where this is going, right?  I still am involved in the public schools today, since I do both the Manheim Township Middle School and Intermediate School yearbooks as well as visit the High School throughout all seasons to run the printing press and do the in-house printing needs for the school district.  On almost all my visits to the schools there are children roaming the halls or are in classes.  I often think what might happen if one of those students pulled out a gun and opened fire.  This week there were threats found in bath rooms of a few Lancaster, PA schools telling of violence that was going to happen, perhaps with assault-style weapons.  Police were called in and at least one school called off classes.  This NEVER happened when I was a student in school, since weapons such as that weren't for sale.  In my opinion, military assault-style weapons where never thought about when the 2nd Amendment was written, so should be banned for use by everyone except the military.  And, you'll never change my mind.  If these weapons of mass destruction had never been offered to the general public, our schools, as well as the general public, wouldn't be faced with the horrendous problem we now have.  And, the majority of today's elected officials will not change the laws since they would lose their big contributions that the NRA offers to them to be able to continue to sell those killing machines.  I fear for all youth of today and can hardly wait until they are of voting age and put an end to the sale of automatic weapons by voting in to office like-minded people.  It will happen, but I'm afraid not soon enough.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.