Letter to the editor: Consider alternative ways to reduce school violence

Sometimes I wonder not if this country is going insane, but why it has happened. With another tragic school shooting taking more innocent lives, the talking heads running the show are trying to figure out what to do to put an end to the violence that seems to have over taken our society.

I believe I have come up with a couple of earth-shattering solutions. Some want to ban all guns while others suggest arming teachers. I see slight problems with either solution. As far as taking all the guns away, with 10 gazillion guns in the U.S., some of the crazies might not give theirs up. So that probably won’t work very well. I thought arming teachers might be a good idea until I heard a former school principal’s comments the other day. While discussing the recent school shooting over coffee, a patron at the restaurant made the comment, “we should just arm all the teachers.” The former principal overhearing this quickly responded with, “I am a retired principal and I wouldn’t arm most teachers with a sharp pencil.” While the principal’s’ comment garnered a laugh, it got me thinking of different solutions to the violence problem we seem to have here in the U.S.

For starters, how about putting the Ten Commandments back in school? Even if you are an atheist and believe we all come from nothing, you have to admit they are some pretty good rules. Then second, how about limiting access to violent video reality games? To this old school boy, playing non-stop violent reality video games with non-stop killing seems quite crazy. Of course that would take some parental involvement, which could be a bit of an inconvenience. I believe it would probably cut down by quite a bit, the desire of kids to kill each other. And now for one more radical idea: How about bringing back corporal punishment for misbehavior to our schools? I am not talking 20 lashes for chewing gum, but maybe a swat across the butt for telling a teacher to (expletive) off or for bullying. Or in the case of older-age kids, being slammed up against the locker used to work quit well. Why not go back to time-tested solutions of the past? While I am sure this will hurt some kids, and probably more so, parents’ feelings, we need to take drastic measures to end the violence within our society. Yes, I know we are now a supposedly enlightened society, but the bulb doesn’t seem very bright at times.

Tags: opinion, letters, shooting