Give a Boy a Gun (22 page)

“ ‘We'll never understand why this tragedy happened, or what we might have done to prevent it. . . . We did not see anger or hatred in Dylan until the last moments of his life, when we watched in helpless horror with the rest of the world.'”

—Dylan Klebold's parents,
New York Times
, 6/29/99

The memory of what happened surrounds me like a cloak of pain. A hundred questions buzz around my head: How did it happen? When did it go from a fantasy to an actual plan? I know I'II never understand what happened in Brendan's mind. But I thought I knew Gary better. What pushed him over the line? How did he get to the point where he just didn't care? What really scares me is when I think about how close I came to that point myself
.

—from Allison Findley's journal

A schoolteacher's job is to teach, not to raise children. As far as raising children, I raised my three just fine. They are all good, moral young adults, and two of them own guns, which they use for target shooting and hunting. If you're looking for answers, you're not going to find them in school. Many people around here believe that, at least in this case, the parents were pretty blameless.
I'll be honest with you. I don't know what to think about that. And I don't have any answers.

— Dick Flanagan

I've heard the argument that it's okay to give guns to kids as long as you make sure they're trained on how to use them safely. I have to disagree. These are children, and they can be extremely emotional and impulsive and not always completely in touch with reality. The statistics show that guns are now the number one killer of young people in this country. You can train a young man all you want, but if he's just been dumped by his girlfriend, or picked on by someone much bigger and stronger than him . . . well, I'm just not convinced that all the safety training in the world is going to stop him from grabbing that gun and doing what he thinks he has to do.

— Beth Bender

The community has made it clear that they want metal detectors and security guards in school. They want backpacks banned as well.
I think it's a shame that we have to resort to these measures, but if that's what the community wants, I'm prepared to comply.

—Allen Curry

There was an article in the newspaper recently about the NRA paying for programs that promote hunting and gun use among children. I have nothing against hunting. My dad hunted, and some of my fondest memories are of sitting around the dinner table eating venison and hearing his hunting stories. But personally, I think hunting is something parents can teach their children about, just like my father learned from his father. I don't understand why a big national organization feels it must spend all this money to make sure children learn about guns.

— Kit Conner

Want to know what a trigger lock is? It's something
you take off a gun and throw away.

—Jack Phillips

Middle school students possessed 853 of the 1,249 weapons found in public schools statewide in Virginia during the 1991-92 school year.

I'm not sure what it will take to change. Everyone knows that guns and violence are deeply ingrained in our culture. You've got about as much chance of getting people to give up their guns as you do getting them to give up driving or drinking beer at baseball games. Innocent victims die because of guns, but they also die because of car accidents, acts of terrorism, fires, and food poisoning. We find the idea of kids being killed in school especially repugnant because we send our children there expecting them to be safe. But it appears that no place is safe anymore.

—F. Douglas Ellin

I sincerely believe that this tragedy didn't have to happen. Maybe Gary and Brendan were different from other kids, but they still should have been accepted as people. Maybe there should be a mandatory course in school that teaches kids to respect one
another no matter what. I think that would be a lot more helpful than geometry.

— Emily Kirsch

I read in the newspaper that the kind of guns they had are pretty much the same thing the army uses. They're not made for hunting or target practice. They're just made to kill people. Why in the world are stores allowed to sell them?

—Chelsea Baker

I used to drive through towns and see signs proclaiming, “Drug-Free Zone.” Now the signs say, “Gun-Free Zone.” But by the time they're thinking about guns, it's too late. The signs should read, “Teasing/Bullying-Free Zone.” My son was different, and he was made to pay for that every day of his short life. Perhaps if we spent as much time teaching tolerance as we do teaching athletics, my son
would be alive today.

—Cynthia Searle

A program for resolving conflicts creatively was tested in New York City public elementary schools. It was found that students in the program tended to be less hostile and were more likely to choose verbal rather than physical strategies to resolve conflicts.

Even now when I go to school, I know I'm being watched. Ryan and I leave little pieces of paper wedged in the bottom of our locker doors, and about once a week they're gone. We walk down the hall, and teachers stop talking. Nothing's changed. In fact, in some ways it's gotten worse. If you act different or dress different, you're automatically suspect.

—Allison Findley

In the wild, animals pick on the weaker members of the pack. This is done partly to establish a pecking order and partly to protect
the pack against weakness. It is no different with children. Teasing, bullying, fighting—these are how children establish their pecking order. It is, unfortunately, natural for children to do this. And it is the responsibility of adults to supervise and stop this behavior. One thing that is wrong with our schools is that we are permitting too much of the former and not enough of the latter.

— F. Douglas Ellin

“ ‘We have a little moneymaking machine here. All we have to do is keep introducing the correct new products. . . . We operate on a philosophy that you have to have new stuff, and you have to have it annually.'”

—William Ruger Sr., president of Ruger, a gun company whose semiautomatic handguns were used by Colin Ferguson to kill six and wound nineteen on a Long Island Railroad train, and by Michael Carneal to kill three and wound five in Paducah, Kentucky,
Making a Killing

I think about the stuff we did—fooling around with bombs and guns, drinking and driving—things that could really kill us. But we didn't know. I swear it was like we were living in some make-believe world. I truly believe that if Gary and Brendan could come back now and see what they did—to themselves and their parents and everyone else—they wouldn't have done it. No one would.

—Ryan Clancy

We live in a culture of brutality. People seem to think that it's perfectly acceptable to be violent.
Look at wrestling on TV. Even when it's fake, we love the savageness of it. Maybe that's the norm outside of school, but I am just plain sorry—when it happens in school, you cannot simply walk away from it and say boys will be boys. It must be stopped.

—Beth Bender