EDITORIAL : GETTING EVEN; ANOTHER SAD RAMPAGE BY A CHILD.ONCE again we are struggling as a nation to make sense of the senseless sense·less adj. 1. Lacking sense or meaning; meaningless. 2. Deficient in sense; foolish or stupid. 3. Insensate; unconscious. violence and overwhelming sadness wrought by a child with a grudge grudge tr.v. grudged, grudg·ing, grudg·es 1. To be reluctant to give or admit: even grudged the tuition money. 2. and a gun. A 15-year-old Oregon youth once playfully voted ``Most Likely to Start World War III'' in middle school walked into his high school's cafeteria last week and methodically me·thod·i·cal also me·thod·ic adj. 1. Arranged or proceeding in regular, systematic order. 2. Characterized by ordered and systematic habits or behavior. See Synonyms at orderly. began firing a .22-caliber rifle. Two students died as a result, and more than 20 were wounded. Then the bodies of his parents were found at home. Friends say Kip Kinkel Kipland Philip Kinkel (born August 30, 1982) is an American spree killer who became the youngest person in Oregon history to receive a de facto life sentence without parole. displayed classic signs of violence: He bragged about torturing and killing animals, he once showed friends a pipe bomb stored in his locker, and he supposedly kept a ``hit list'' of enemies in his school binder. It's easy to jump to assumptions or assess blame because we like neat-and-tidy answers for our pain. His parents were at fault. Too much violence in movies and on television. Insufficient intervention at school. And, of course, too many guns. But the reality is that as a society, we are at a loss to explain the rash of shootings committed by children. The shooting in Oregon occurred just two months after a similar incident in Jonesboro, Ark. There, two boys, one 11 and the other 13, are suspected of killing a teacher and four of their schoolmates. Similar incidents have occurred in West Paducah, Ky., and Pearl, Miss. Similar in their tragic consequences, they were vastly different in the individual circumstances. In Jonesboro, a boy reportedly wanted revenge after his girlfriend broke up with him. In West Paducah, the killer reportedly was inspired by a scene in the movie ``The Basketball Diaries.'' In Pearl, the Pearl, The, one of four Middle English alliterative poems, all contained in a manuscript of c.1400, composed in the West Midland dialect, almost certainly by the same anonymous author, who flourished c.1370–1390. shooter apparently was part of a teen-age cult. The only similarities all these tragedies share is that they defy reason, and they occurred far away from the mean streets that claim lives daily in gang-infested urban areas. As immune as we often seem to be to violence in a violence-plagued society, these acts of violence by children are shocking. It is as if some evil force has infected the hearts of children. Somewhere along the way, the sanctity of life has been lost, the commandment com·mand·ment n. 1. A command; an edict. 2. Bible One of the Ten Commandments. commandment Noun a divine command, esp. that ``Thou shalt not Thou Shalt Not is the initial phrase of most of the Ten Commandments brought forth by Moshe the prophet. It can also mean:
This is a terrible trend that should concern everyone and drive a national debate over what has gone wrong and how we are going to teach - and live - by values that restore respect for life itself. |
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