I am attending a Los Angeles Unified School District school and am
writing to address the issue of violence in schools. As a 17-year-old
student, I feel that I am quite qualified to write about this topic.
With this, I pose my first question. When are we going to wake up?
When is society going to realize that there is no excuse for a
13-year-old child to be shooting anyone, let alone one of his teachers?
My answer to that is simple. I feel that as a society concerned with the
well being of children, we should not be ashamed to put metal detectors
in all of our schools.
We are not ashamed to protect our fine citizens while they are in the
air, but when it comes to our youth in school when do the people in
charge step in? As I am hearing all of these stories of elementary school
shootings and high school shootings, I say to myself, "We have shown
repeatedly that we are not able to handle violence at schools. Therefore,
show the students that it no longer will be tolerated! Make it known that
there will be severe consequences in the state of California for guns at
school and we will substantially deter kids from trying to bring them."
As I answer that question, a second question comes into my head.
Should a 13-year-old, who has committed such an unbelievable crime of
shooting a teacher or classmate, be tried as an adult? In my opinion, yes
they should. But there is also another answer that goes along with that.
I think that the parents, or guardians of these errant 11-, 12-,
13-year-olds should be tried as well.
I don't know about other people, but the "Big Three" were stressed to
me very early: right, wrong, consequence. I knew what these words meant
around the age of 4 or 5. To say a 13-year-old lacks maturity to
distinguish between right and wrong is a crime in itself. Therefore,
something must have gone wrong in the parenting process. I am not trying
to say that there is a "how to" manual on how to be a parent, but I think
that these parents need to be punished for failing to enforce some kind
of discipline that every kid needs.
JONATHAN PEREZ
Sherman Oaks
