Is There a Message from the Madison Shootings?
Monday brought the 385th mass shooting of the year. 56 have occurred in primary and secondary schools. Today’s shootings in Madison, Wisconsin was not unique but it did involve a young woman as the assassin. And it was a killing of a teacher and a classmate at a small religious school. This might not be a family law issue except that in Wisconsin it is a felony to loan or give a weapon to a minor. The shooter in this instance was 15. The source of her 9mm weapon remains unknown.
It was reported this evening that the FBI is studying why the United States has become a veritable hotbed of mass killing. Their research is reported on their website. Prevent Mass Violence — FBI. Data compiled by Statistica suggests that 38% of children who die between ages 15 and 19 die from either homicide or suicide.
Perhaps this is self-evident. But our society needs to take a careful look at what role social media and electronic communications play in causing this carnage. We just reported on a Pennsylvania case where an adult male was communicating with a 13 year old child seeking to purchase her undergarments. Social media was the method of communication. We will probably never solve the problem of access to weapons. Our country has 400 million guns. But 15 year old kids are ordinarily not drawn to killing their teachers and classmates. As this story evolves, it will probably come out that there was provocation that triggered this child to take matters into her own hands. And this writer suspects that the killer’s cell phone and/or other electronic media was the source of the provocation.
Almost every child who has grown up in America has been harassed by classmates, teammates and other contemporaries. Yet, before the day of the electronic phone and personal computer mass shootings by children were unknown. Over time we may realize that our electronic devices may, in a sense, be as deadly as the guns themselves.
There is a movement afoot in some school systems to carefully regulate the electronic gear children have access to and the breadth of communication access. Teenagers may need a phone. But do email and social media accounts really enhance their childhood experience? Parents Magazine reported that mid to late teens are averaging 3,000 hours a year looking at screens. That is nearly half of their waking hours.
We have a gun crisis in America when 2nd graders are calling from school to save their lives. But guns themselves don’t provoke shootings. There is another culprit we need to investigate and it most dangerous element is called a screen.