Proud of students, but not their message

I applaud the students that are protesting school violence, for they are bringing attention to the school shooting problem. But they are protesting about the wrong thing, it is not a gun problem, it is a problem with the person behind the gun.

Guns by themselves can't shoot. It takes a person to pick it up, load the bullets and pull the trigger. Gun control laws will work about as well as all of our drug laws.

And how well are they working? Gun laws might keep guns out of the hands of those that should not have them. But, those that really want guns, if they can't get them legally, will find the illegal gun dealers just like the drug addicts find the dope peddlers. Illegal gun dealers don't make the buyers pass background tests or have them register the weapons. They just want the money.

I think that these shooters have been outcasts in their own school. They have been made fun of, harassed, and bullied, which added to the mental problems they probably had to begin with, until they snap. If the students, instead of protesting guns, would make an effort to befriend and understand the outcast students, I think that they would be less likely to become shooters. If there were an AR-15 put in every locker in every school and no one picked one up in anger, there wouldn't be a shooting. Guns do not shoot by themselves.

Students, start helping to protect yourselves. Befriend an "outcast", and help them with their problems.

William Grove

Palatine