This will be a fairly short diary. It is about the shooting by the 6 year old in Newport News Virginia, previously discussed in a heavily commented diary by Pakalolo. I don’t write very many diaries, but the reason I felt a need to write another one about this incident is a story I read in the NYT today entitled “After 6-Year-Old Is Accused in School Shooting, Many Questions and a Murky Legal Path”.
We are all familiar now with the the plot line of the movie that brought us the term “gaslighting”, and after reading this article I have to think it is America now that is in the situation of the protagonist in that movie, wondering about our national sanity. The six year old in question “in police custody Friday evening”, seriously wounded a teacher, intentionally, by shooting her with a handgun. So not very far into the article, the Times tries to reassure us with something I think we knew already.
Yet school shootings by young children are exceedingly rare, experts say. The K-12 School Shooting Database, which has compiled data on every gun incident at a school — anytime a firearm has been discharged on school property — dating back to 1970, has identified just 16 incidents involving shooters under the age of 10, and even fewer by children as young as 6
This is hardly a point that needs to be made. The much larger issue hanging over our nation is that this is happening at all. And of course, no surprise:
The authorities have not … offered information about whether the gun was taken from home, school or elsewhere
I assume we will get that information eventually, and I’m also willing to bet, given the leadership in that state right now, that plenty of excuses will be forthcoming, but real accountability by the adult(s) involved, umm, not so much. I would be happy to be proven wrong, won’t hold my breath.
And talk about state leadership?
The state’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, said on Saturday that he believed Virginia already had “some of the toughest gun laws in the nation” but that the next step was to invest more money in mental health treatment and to pass tougher penalties for crimes committed with guns…
He also said on Saturday, during a brief interview in Virginia Beach, that he wanted the Legislature to enact tougher penalties for gun crimes, though it was unclear whether either initiative would address how a 6-year-old was able to wield a loaded handgun in school.
I am sorry to inform the state’s embarrassment of a governor that as the article reports, it is not legal to send somebody to one of the state’s juvenile detention facilities who is below the age of 11. Maybe Youngkin thinks changing that law is the solution? And oh yes, of course, it should have all been headed off by appropriate mental health counseling. Talk about that, the father of one of the students who watched their teacher get shot by a fellow student is considering home schooling their child from now on, and says “I’m just here trying to keep my son occupied so he’s not thinking about everything.” Multiply by every other student in the classroom that day, as well as every student in the elementary school for that matter.
Feeling the need to reassure us that shootings by six year olds are rare, and reporting that the authorities’ suggested solution is tougher criminal penalties on the shooters, will be enough to send us all to the loony bin. Or we could make this one of the several issues where we say no more, and resolve to remove the people from office who are continuing to enable the insane slaughter.