"The boy and the teacher had been involved in an altercation in a classroom before the boy shot the teacher once, the police said.... The boy was in police custody Friday evening, the authorities said, but the unusual nature of the situation leaves the path forward far from clear.... Under Virginia law, a 6-year-old cannot be charged as an adult. And while it is possible the child could be charged criminally in juvenile court, the minimum age to be sentenced to a juvenile prison in Virginia is 11. 'The juvenile justice system is not really equipped to deal with really young kids who commit criminal offenses and is probably the wrong place to deal with a situation like this,' said Andrew Block, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law...."
The question cannot be what to do to a 6-year-old child. What has already been done to him that he is so ruined at the age of 6?
The teacher suffered life-threatening injury but has not died, but I wanted to see how young a child has committed murder. Here's a list at Wikipedia. A 4-year-old named Retta McCabe is said to have committed murder in 1897. The "beautiful, blue-eyed, golden-haired child" threw her infant brother onto the floor and "sprang upon the babe and beat it with all her might." The next youngest children on Wikipedia's list are 6 year olds. There were 3, including the killer of Kayla Renee Rolland in 2000:
Kayla Rolland was killed by a six-year-old male first grader at Buell Elementary School in the Beecher Community School District, located in Mount Morris Township, Michigan.... His father, Dedric Owens, was in jail for violating his parole.... The boy had been living with his mother, Tamarla, and his eight-year-old brother. She was evicted from her home... and both boys then shared a single sofa as a bed at their uncle's house. The home, where his uncle lived with a 19-year-old man, was a crack house where guns were frequently traded for drugs....
The boy was known to have behavioral issues, and was made to stay after school nearly every day for swearing, giving people the finger, pinching, and hitting. Some weeks before the shooting he stabbed a girl with a pencil. Chris Boaz, a seven-year-old classmate, claimed the boy once punched him because he would not give him a pickle. The boy had previously attacked Kayla Rolland and, on the day prior to the killing, tried to kiss her and was rebuffed....
75 comments:
What has already been done to him that he is so ruined at the age of 6?
I blame the NYT paywall.
The child is in custody, what about the parent(s) or guardian(s)?
The demographics are key to this story, and the lack of information in this regard tells you everything you need to know.
A scalpel? A gun. Is Virginia a sanctuary state? Federal jurisdiction? Still viable? The 6-year-old is no "hero".
while it is possible the child could be charged criminally in juvenile court
No, it is not possible. What is possible is that persons under 18 can be alleged to have committed a delinquent act, or a petition can be filed alleging that they are a child in need of services. Either adjudication can result in the provision of various services aimed at the best interests of the child.
The real culprit was the adult or adults who left guns where a 6-year could get them. That's a recipe for diaster even if the boy didn't have anger issues. Plenty of small kids have killed themselves or others playing with loaded guns.
Some children are indeed born that way. One of the unexpected findings of 20th century personality research was that small children who torture animals often grow up to commit crimes. Some people are born predators and others are born prey. Society tends to find jobs for them (e.g.,military combat) or they become career criminals, or they end up imprisoned.
They do not have low self-esteem. they have artificially high self-esteem and furiously resent a world that does not reinforce to them what they believe they deserve.
FTR, I think a great deal of this is genetic, not environmental, and focusing on environmental causes creates a situation in which we spend lots of money on unimportant factors, while feeling good about ourselves that we have "done something.":
Enigma, I, too have read about the correlation with animal cruelty and future murderers and serial killers. I have always wanted a country-side site similar to a sexual predator site so that they could be 'watched' or at the very least, get on a non-adoption list at animal rescue shelters.
As Mary Beth said, what about the parents/guardians?
The lack of details is revealing. Who were the adult influencers in his life?
Society tends to find jobs for them (e.g.,military combat) or they become career criminals, or they end up imprisoned.
The predators are the worst ones to put into the military. They tend to be abusive when in power and resent authority when they aren't.
Mostly, they just end up imprisoned.
What has already been done to him that he is so ruined at the age of 6?
I'm willing to bet sexual and physical abuse, with a side of emotional abuse and neglect.
the real culprit? People who are allowed to own guns.... And are not responsible. I suspect the gun was either left out in the open, loaded, or was in an unsecure place, loaded. Adults who own guns and don't take care of them responsible. The best reason not to allow guns to be sold to the public. Please, Don't go all "oh Vicki you are a scummy libtard" Don't care,my opinion. If you don't like it or are uncomfortable with it, too bad.
Vicki from Pasadena
Amexpat said...
The real culprit was the adult or adults who left guns where a 6-year could get them.
My mother grew up on a farm. There were always guns in the house that were easily reachable by the children there. My mother said there was always a loaded rifle over the doorway at the rear-entryway. She and her sisters just knew they were never to use it. Now I do think there is different between young boys and young girls and their predilection to be interested in a gun. But even a young boy who is interested in guns is going to be interested in playing with them, to see how they work, to see what they can do. What went on in this story wasn't a boy trying to play with a gun it was a buy trying to hurt someone with a gun. Now I'm not advocating for open access to firearms for young children, it seems very reasonable to prevent young children from having access to firearms, but I am arguing that the real underlying problem in this story was that this boy wanted to hurt people and thought it was ok to hurt people.
How the hell does a six year old carry a gun into a class without anyone noticing? How does he even get a gun?
We all know the six year old was black, and he probably got away with "behavioral issues" because of that. No one wants to be called "racist". Or they somehow think Black kids are "just that way". Bigotry of low expectations. However, I don't see anything you can take away from this. We have 4 million six year olds, and if 1 kid in a million is dangerously violent, is that surprising?
Newport News used to be a Navy town. I have a feeling its different now.
My father said his high school in Massachusetts had a gun club.
Would have been mid-'40s.
Kids would bring guns to school and put them in their lockers for range practice after class.
It was a suburb of Boston...
Newport News used to be a Navy town. I have a feeling its different now.
Still is a big military town, which is likely part of the problem. You have a large population of young men who are transient, which means an economy which caters to them in the form of vices, as well as a lot of government employees who provide a stable supply of revenue. This can be a toxic brew for local governments.
Interesting that none of the commenters seemed to have considered that the fault may have been the teacher's. While I think the odds are slim, the teacher may have deserved to have been shot. Not anywhere near enough information at this stage to make an honest conclusion.
Interesting that none of the commenters seemed to have considered that the fault may have been the teacher's. While I think the odds are slim, the teacher may have deserved to have been shot. Not anywhere near enough information at this stage to make an honest conclusion.
It's not just the parents who should be considered responsible. In that 2000 case discussed in the post, the school was on notice that the child was dangerous to other children. Why didn't the authorities rescue the child from his awful environment and try to help him (or at least protect the other children from him)? It sounds as though they just gave him detention! How could that save him?
To the extent the kid is not responsible (probably entirely, in this case), the parents are. I'm guessing there's only one parent in this kid's life, but both belong in prison. Get the kid help and into foster care.
Get a minority illegal immigrant to do your dirty work, kid…
Why didn't the authorities rescue the child from his awful environment and try to help him (or at least protect the other children from him)? It sounds as though they just gave him detention! How could that save him?
Schools, as well as Child Welfare Services, are run by progressive idealogues who are incompetent at best or corrupt at worst. Try to take the kid out of the situation, and you'll end up under attack from activists and bureaucrats. Even if you were successful in removing him from a bad home, it's likely that the family courts will stick him into an endless cycle of shitty foster homes or relatives, and then back with his family after a few months.
Read The Abolition of School Discipline by Daniel Buck at nationalaffairs.com.
Also, Gail Heriot has been following this for years.
victoria said...
the real culprit? People who are allowed to own guns.... And are not responsible. I suspect the gun was either left out in the open, loaded, or was in an unsecure place, loaded.
You mean like the Capitol police lieutenant who murdered Ashli Babbit ?
No mention of race so we know what that means.
victoria said...
"the real culprit? People who are allowed to own guns.... And are not responsible."
Now let's apply that same metric to people who use their computers to comment on the internet.
What we can conclude here is that it isn't the firearms fault, but, in this case, those people who were supposed to be raising this child.
The real culprit was the adult or adults who left guns where a 6-year could get them.
Agreed. When there are children in the house guns should be locked in a safe unless (1) they are put into a case — unloaded — for a trip to the range and never out of the owner’s control, (2) they are put into case — unloaded — for a trip to a competition and never out of the owner’s control, or (3) unloaded and field stripped on a work bench for cleaning, and then only if the owner is there doing the cleaning. And needless to say, the child should never know the safe’s combination.
My cousin is a school resource officer. At his old school, which was where they sent problem children, he had a 10-yr old under indictment for armed robbery.
"The question cannot be what to do to a 6-year-old child. What has already been done to him that he is so ruined at the age of 6?"
The answer is obvious. Bad parenting.
I lived near the Beecher case. Beecher was a low-income, high-minority district. It had the lowest academic achievement in the area--Flint, MI--and the highest per-pupil travel expenditure for the school board. Visiting football teams escorted their cheerleaders on and off the field in the hollow square formation.
My son played football and basketball in another school system in the league. We were there for parents' night. What an atrocity. The football team had maybe three dozen guys, three of whom had mom and dad. The basketball team had twelve guys and none had an intact parental arrangement.
The original reporting had the gun just "going off" in the back pack, as the gun which killed Kate Steinle just "went off". But things got clearer.
You couldn't have designed a worse situation for the kid to grow up in even without loose guns around.
Had the other six-year-olds been allowed to carry he could have been taken out before he killed someone else...
"The question cannot be what to do to a 6-year-old child."
I'm guessing that if the little dear were pointing his self-expression device at, oh, say, the middle of your face, you might be willing to at least consider that question. But of course, that isn't something that is likely to happen, at least not to you, so you can afford to be dismissive about it.
My two cents:
I. The child demonstrates behaviors strongly correlated with abuse/mental issues; no parental action, behaviors continue
2. Social services and the public schools do nothing to assist the child, even after witnessing such behaviors
3. At some point, the police and/or other first responders visited the domicile and documented their findings. No follow up done due to workload/socio-economic considerations/racial considerations/or plain old bureaucratic inertia
4. Blame guns
5. No bureaucrat/parental figure will be help responsible
6. No media follow up
7. Rinse and repeat
I worked as an EMT in San Diego and Chicago back in the early nineties. Nothing new for me
@Vicki from Pasadena, how about as a show of good faith you start by disarming the gang-bangers in downtown LA? To a good first approximation all of the guns in their possession are illegally owned. Let us know when you’ve successfully completed your task. Or is it that you only want to disarm the people who might shoot back at your beloved gang-bangers?
There’s a documentary on YouTube including an interview with a 6 year old girl (now grown) who calmly discusses wanting to kill her adoptive parents and her biological younger brother.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2-Re_Fl_L4
(There’s also a dramatization of her life on YouTube with the same name as the documentary so please don’t mix those 2 up.)
The best reason not to allow guns to be sold to the public.
What other parts of the Constitution are you willing to toss out the window?
One who thinks like Victoria, ignores the simple mathematics. Hundreds of millions of guns exist. Aside from criminal actions, how often do such circumstances as this present. Place the decimal point accurately. Surprisingly not more often.
Having been raised in a houseful of accessible guns and ammunition in a big city, I can not see anything but parental neglect in this child's upbringing.
Some kids are raised to be scrapped.
'It's not just the parents who should be considered responsible. In that 2000 case discussed in the post, the school was on notice that the child was dangerous to other children.'
You mean like the kid who shot up the school in Parkland, FL?
Obama made sure that minority student troublemakers were kept out of any disciplinary system.
Racist dontcha know...
It’s the Little Old Biddy From Pasadena
Vicki,
You are a scummy libtard.
"Bad parenting" assumes a cultural norm of parental investment in child-rearing. But as we all know, some cultures believe in high fecundity and low parental investment in any individual child: the "r-strategy" in biological terms. "It takes a village to raise a child" as one political proponent of that culture entitled her book. I am sure BLM and any number of white allies would tell you judging the parent(s) according to any norm of high parental investment is nothing but white privilege. The System (or "village") is at fault, as usual.
On the other hand, if the child turns out to be white or white-adjacent, the MSM will lead the charge to throw the book at the parents and no "villagers" will object.
The premise of a majority of these comments is that the boy comprehended what he was doing. That is simply not possible. A six-year-old cannot comprehend death, or murder. Six-year-olds don't understand that movies are fake--even after you explain it to them.
He might be a psycho or he might not.
Since we don't have a picture of the boy or of his caregivers (which mostly likely is a mother alone) we can only speculate but it's more than likely he's well immersed in the culture of the 13%.
A well regulated child’s militia strikes again!
1.Ammosexuals will deflect from the obvious question : why is the U.S the only country where this kind of absurdity happens so frequently?
2. Gun Fetishizers will make the problem about anything and EVERYTHING except the extreme oversaturation and under regulation of firearms in this country.
Armed society is polite
Tree of liberty, blood of pats
Cold, dead, hands
‘merica
'Don't go all "oh Vicki you are a scummy libtard..."'
"Don't care, my opinion."
Bu what if "... you are a scummy libtard..." is MY opinion?
And, Big Mike, you seem to only allow for range time and competition for guns outside the house?
No hunting? No guns for self defense outside the home? No other need for guns ever enter your heads?
Read all the Constitutional Amendments and please list which others you would void.
Vicky? I was Wondering.. Do you have ANY reason, to think that this gun was legally purchased?
I mean, ANY reason? ANY reason, at all?
Please explain, HOW you think taking guns from legal gun owners would make ANY difference here?
"Interesting that none of the commenters seemed to have considered that the fault may have been the teacher's. While I think the odds are slim"
Yeah, given the number of 1st graders committing homicide, how could she have missed it? This never would've happened if she'd been packing heat.
Again, how the hell does a 1st grader take a gun from home, tote it to school, and get it inside the classroom with no one noticing? Or doing anything about it?
Heh.so a damaged kid does something stupid because of his idiot parents. The first course of action from asshole libs is to call for the punishment of the people who had no part in the crimes committed. You shithead fascist dirtbags are cowards. Your gun control bullshit is cowardice. Because you jackass clowns never have the courage to confront the criminals, you know those people who commit the crimes. Like the parents in this immediate incident. Also, what about the responsibilities of those government slugs who are supposed to oversee situations like this. Oversee when they aren't masturbating to porn on the job or playing video poker in between playing with themselves. So, gun control ? Go fuck yourself you fascist twats. Punish the shit out of all those people whose job and responsibility it is to prevent these things from happening.
Vicki from Pasadena: Adults who own guns and don't take care of them responsible. The best reason not to allow guns to be sold to the public. Please, Don't go all "oh Vicki you are a scummy libtard" Don't care,my opinion. If you don't like it or are uncomfortable with it, too bad.
Now do cars, baseball bats, hammers, and swimming pools. (NB: drowning kills more children under the age of 15 than do guns.)
https://www.foxnews.com/us/virginia-teacher-shot-6-year-old-identified-parents-demand-action
Before Friday's incident at Richneck Elementary School there were shootings at two other schools within the Newport News Public Schools system that shook the community in the past 17 months.
In September 2021, a 16-year-old fired several shots in a busy hallway inside Heritage High School during lunchtime, injuring two 17-year-olds
In December 2021, 18-year-old Demari Batten fatally shot 17-year-old Justice Dunham in the parking lot of Menchville High School after a football game,
It's INTERESTING.. So far, the closest i've seen, to ANY demographics for that school district is in the names of the teens involved in one of the shootings...
"Demari Batten" shot "Justice Dunham", which SURE SOUND like white people names (don't they?)
But, here's the demographics for that town.. Newport News VA:
white --- 38%
BLACK --- 41%
Hispanic- 10%
makes you wonder, if Vicky is correct? WOULD confiscating guns from ALL legal owners, and allowing ONLY felons to possess guns, be the answer? hmmmm
I read about this in the NY Post two days ago and commented there.
Quote from their article: “One mother, who did not provide her name, furiously told a 3TKR reporter that she was “pissed off” at the country’s lack of gun control.” What additional law does she think would stop a 6 year old from obtaining a loaded pistol - illegally - carrying it onto school grounds - illegally - and illegally shooting a teacher?
The problem isn’t a lack of laws, nor is it the guns. It’s a complete disregard for norms of behavior on the part of the child, the adults surrounding him who are his primary caregivers (I have yet to see “parents”, plural, mentioned in regards to the child.) and the subculture the caregivers surround themselves with.
I don’t have pistols in my house. I have other projectile weapons, both bullet and arrow types. And a large assortment of edged weapons. And a large selection of tools meant to be used as non-weapon tools that could certainly inflict great bodily damage. None have ever been used for that purpose. But they’re ready in case of need. 5 now adult children, none ever mishandled any of them. And the 4 boys all had their Totin’ Chip to carry around knives and axes and saws at Scouting functions. My daughter had much the same training without the Chip.
I’m 67. From 6th grade on I had a knife in my pocket every day, in school. And everyone knew I had it. Had a paper route after school. I don’t know what they tie the newspaper bundles with, but the knife opened them quickly.
The problem isn’t a lack of laws, nor is it the guns. It’s a complete disregard for norms of behavior
An intellectual curiosity. A forward-looking "burden". A wicked solution. A [secular] religious sanction with "benefits".
Mama, don't let your babies, evolve to become abortionists.
Now do cars, baseball bats, hammers, and swimming pools.
And bladed instrument are the preferred Choice of petty, criminal, clinical, intellectual, and misogynistic abortionists.
Ammosexuals will deflect from the obvious question : why is the U.S the only country where this kind of absurdity happens so frequently?
Because we want it that way. Obviously. There can be no other reason(s).
I blame the criminal who sold him the gun.And, where does a six year old get that kind of money?
Again, how the hell does a 1st grader take a gun from home, tote it to school, and get it inside the classroom with no one noticing? Or doing anything about it?
Even pre-school students have back packs now. Might have taken older siblings gun parents were not aware of. May have found it in the neighborhood.
Might have traded another kid a video game for it.
Story is lacking detail.
Enigma said...
Some children are indeed born that way. One of the unexpected findings of 20th century personality research was that small children who torture animals often grow up to commit crimes. Some people are born predators and others are born prey. Society tends to find jobs for them (e.g.,military combat) or they become career criminals, or they end up imprisoned.
***************
What a steaming load of shit. "Perhaps you can explain how "Society" "finds" jobs for predators. The military is, or used to be, the epitome of discipline, ESPECIALLY in times of combat. Unhinged volunteers are almost always weeded out when they show bottled up rage, because they are precisely the people who should not be allowed access to deadly weapons, and the military never recruits people who show signs of being predators. It's utterly stupid to claim that the military is looking for secret sickos.
But perhaps you can provide evidence for your claim---you know, statistics showing soldiers gunning down fellow soldiers, in peacetime or war---for the fun of it, in numbers statistically exceeding such crimes committed by civilians, but I suspect you're just shooting off your mouth.
The premise of a majority of these comments is that the boy comprehended what he was doing. That is simply not possible. A six-year-old cannot comprehend death, or murder. Six-year-olds don't understand that movies are fake--even after you explain it to them.
He might be a psycho or he might not.
That is essentially my take as well. I don't doubt that he may have come up with the idea on his own that he was mad at the teacher and wanted to hurt the teacher on his own (my 8, 6, and 3 year old do that to each other constantly for some anecdotal evidence), but there is no way in hell a 6 year old is thinking much past that, or that there are permanent implications for some definitions of 'hurt'. Virginia law clearly agrees with that based on the discussion in the post regarding the legal portion of this.
The kid has issues of some sort, up in the air whether nature or nature based, but culpability for this crime really has to fall on the parents and whoever allowed the kid access to a loaded weapon (that venn diagram may not overlap). There are not enough facts known to determine whether the school itself failed the kid. Maybe they had already contacted social services about this kid? We just don't know.
No doubt in my mind mommy or daddy handed the little imp the gun and told him to shoot the teacher.
"What has already been done to him that he is so ruined at the age of 6?"
Some kids are psychopaths from infancy. Truly. Without anything being "done to" them.
But for the sake of argument let's assume that other commentators are correct in their inferences from the lack of demographic detail.
In this country there's a lot of ruin in some groups that shall not be named. Groups that are paid to produce kids in fatherless families, in communities where disputes are settled by guns, whose members mostly kill each other at the highest rates in the western world, but who also assault people outside their group by the hundreds of thousands every year. This incident happens to catch attention.
Nothing is done to him but society tolerating massive dysfunction and violence, because the alternative would be to incur the worst accusation in current political discourse.
What kind of school was it? Its chronic absenteeism rate was 24.7 in 2021-22. Basically, the school is a failing school. Maybe best just to try to help kids get out of that school with school choice. That can be done.
https://schoolquality.virginia.gov/schools/richneck-elementary
I see the gun groomers have lots to say.
And, Big Mike, you seem to only allow for range time and competition for guns outside the house?
@JAORE, my bad. I don’t hunt so I mistakenly overlooked that possibility. I imagine that the rules are similar to those for competition — your gun in the car cased and unloaded, and unload it before bringing it back into the house to be cleaned and put back in the safe. An experienced, responsible hunter might weigh in, here.
If you do concealed carry (with a permit, I hope) and have children at home then you have a serious responsibility to make sure you don’t leave guns just laying around, and also that the kids are safe around guns — that they’ve been trained not to touch and to call for a responsible adult to secure it. Don’t leave it in the car! So many guns have made it into the hands of gang-bangers by being left in cars that were subsequently broken into. (A burglar in my neighborhood broke into a sheriff deputy’s squad car parked outside the deputy’s home and helped himself to a gun and a laptop, though he discarded the laptop when he realized —correctly — that it was owned by the department and had firmware inside that could let the device be located.)
There’s another case to consider, and that concerns home defense from wildlife — and two-legged predators. I’ve had a black bear up on my deck and YouTube is full of videos showing mountain lions on porches of decks, bears in the front or back yard, and even black bears inside the house. But if you just leave your gun on a nightstand or in a stocking drawer then a child will find it. I found my Dad’s gun mixed in with his stockings when I was a kid, and I don’t regard myself as unusually inquisitive. By definition a home defense gun has to be readily available and either already loaded or quickly loaded. How to secure a home defense weapon when there are children in the house is the challenge for the gun owner. There are numerous solutions; choose one that works for your circumstances.
"More gun control" is an autonomic response by leftists. Bad people or stupid people do bad or stupid things? We must punish the law-abiding people who don't do bad or stupid things! It has nothing to do with solving a problem, but that's not the point. It makes you feel important, like sacrificing a virgin when the crops fail. Crops haven't revived? Find another virgin.
2. Gun Fetishizers will make the problem about anything and EVERYTHING except the extreme oversaturation and under regulation of firearms in this country.
I’m hard-pressed to imagine anything more highly regulated than firearms. Considering that neither you, TeaBagHag, nor Icky Vicki, the original little old lady from Pasadena, have the guts to do anything about criminals possessing illegally owned guns, the rest of us are going to ignore you. Now slither back into your dark corner and whine some more.
In Los Angeles schools, teachers cannot have minority students (I.e., black and Hispanic) expelled even for grievous violence in the classroom. Reason: disparate impact on minority students. Real reason: normalize such behavior because teachers and other students do not deserve violence-free classrooms and schools. Just another reason we need to recognize that the experiment in state monopoly of public education has failed. If you care about non-criminal minority students, you will support vast expansion of charter schools AND vouchers.
There were several gun laws broken in this shooting. Show me (another, among thousands) a gun control law feasible to stop that kid short of gun confiscation. ALL guns.
Yet the left continues to deny that is their goal.
At least a couple of the commenters admit they want to take away our means of self defense and ignore the Constitution.
As I understand it, a single mother living with her drug dealing boyfriend, who always had a bunch of illegal guns lying around, since he would trade his drugs for guns, then sell them to others. The kid picked up one of the illegal guns, lying around the house, took it to school, and shot and killed the teacher he was having problems with.
Part of the solution is obvious - enforce the gun laws on the books. Felon In Possession (of a gun) is a crime almost everywhere in this country. It is also a federal crime. So is having a gun, while committing a crime (like selling illegal drugs - or guns). They aren’t really enforced all that much, except to stack offenses when engaging in plea deals. One of the things that helped clean up the violence in NYC was Stop And Frisk, which was effective in keeping a lot of the illegal guns off the street. NYPD quit doing it, and violence soared. Duh! And minorities and women were hurt the most.
Taking the guns away from law abiding citizens, because the Justice system isn’t protecting them from gun wielding criminals, isn’t going to stop gun violence, or even keeping this sort of tragedy from happening. Remember, this kid was living with gun and drug dealing criminals, who should have been in prison, but weren’t. Responsible parents keep strict control over the firearms in their homes. But then responsible parents don’t live with drug and gun dealing criminals, like this kid’s mother was.
@JAORE, when lefties so forget themselves as to openly call for death to all Republicans, it reminds me that the original Nazis prepared for the Holocaust by confiscating all Jewish-owned firearms.
Eliminate sealed juvenile records for serious and violent crimes.
Throw the book at the parents for anything from child abandonment (dad, probably), child abuse, and any type of welfare or other benefits fraud (mom, probably).
Then the child is placed in intensive counseling where he can't harm others, which does mean a controlled mental facility, not foster care in the community.
Simply put, an unarmed nation is a nation ready to capitulate to dascist government goons, our own and those from other nations. This kids parents were obviously not responsible gun owners and they should also be charged...pure negligence. Someone here actually blamed the teacher victim!? Teachers have little power over anything meaningful, like behavior control in a classroom of 25 kids from the hood...oh, except the gender identity garbage. I had a friend who taught 3 grade here in Las Cruces and almost half of her 24 kids had incarcerated parents in any given year. Having met their parents, she remarked many were clearly gang bangers kids and they acted like it too. She worked in a school in the ghetto area and that was 10 years ago.She literally had no power in controlling bad behavior of students, and she felt it was out of control. Her good kids couldn't learn well because of the bad ones.
Gun owners who operate properly under the law are not the problem..it is the criminals breeding and raising criminal children that are the issue.
"The question cannot be what to do to a 6-year-old child. What has already been done to him that he is so ruined at the age of 6?"
You really have to love the magical thinking in this construct. On several levels...
First, the automatic dismissal of "what to do to" a 6-year old that tries murdering someone with a firearm. The way it's phrased, it's almost as if there's a tautology here: 6-year old? Can't do anything about it. Fact of nature, like gravity.
News flash: There's plenty to be done, including culling the child and the child's parents from the gene pool as threats to others. If that's too unpleasant, well... Just do what we do, and let the issue fester until the kid is old enough to execute, and let them kill as many as they might like until they reach some random point in the future where they've gone past the social norms sufficiently so as we all ignore the bias against action. It's A-OK in this construct to let this kid be violent and dangerous until some arbitrary date is reached, and never mind the innocent, productive lives that the child takes. Until that point.
Another bit of magical thinking: That something "broke" this child. Again, what evidence is presented before us that this creature mimicking a normal human being was ever anything other than "broken"? Despite the fatuous ravings of men like Rosseau, there really are no inherently "good" human beings. In a state of nature, humans are bastards; note the number of primitive tribes which are perfectly content to massacre others and eat them. The issue here isn't that this child was somehow corrupted, but that the monster wasn't ever properly socialized so as to prevent this behavior. That could be a failure of parenting, or a failure of inherent nature; not every kid is automatically amenable to social influence.
The mentality exposed by this paragraph is why we're failing as a society, starting with the legal and judicial systems. It matters not one whit why this kid presents a threat to society and others; what matters is that the child is an ongoing menace. We don't have the courage or the common sense to deal with this honestly, romanticizing the child as something that it obviously is: A failed attempt at a human being. Being as this failed human being is presenting itself as a threat to others, the solution is quite simple. We just aren't honest enough with ourselves to admit it.
The fixing of responsibility for that problem is another issue entirely, and one more properly addressed at the various and sundry assholes in society who've romanticized violence in the cultural commons, and who have monetized that to the point where games like Grand Theft Auto are some of the highest-selling things in history.
(cont)
There are really two issues here: One, that the kid in question is sufficiently f*cked in the head that it thinks it can solve problems with other human beings by killing them, and two, that that solution is so clearly and consistently encouraged by the cultural features around it during its upbringing. Failure to deal effectively with these issues are why we're where we are at, on the downward spiral in the toilet bowl.
If you're breeding animals as pets that have to interact with people, then one of the things you're supposed to do is cull any that display signs of aggression against human beings. That's a no-brainer, except for the idiots that have ruined Pit Bulls. The fact that we don't frame issues revolving around human beings in a similar fashion? Magical thinking: People are not any different than animals; you breed for aggression and vicious behavior, that's what you get. Cull the ones exhibiting that sort of behavior, and you'll achieve civilization as a default.
Frankly, I'd be strongly for eliminating any of these things that walk on two legs, because they're basically never going to be anything other than a threat to others. It's like the habitual drunken driver; you don't remove them from the population by one means or another, and all you're doing is setting the conditions by which they'll eventually kill untold numbers of non-drunken drivers. How many murderers are actually "one and done" types that only kill the one person? How many lives could we save if we had the honest to admit that anyone that commits acts of violence is a threat, and then dealt with them pre-emptively, instead of waiting until they kill so many that we finally have to do something about them?
The people advocating for "mercy" in these situations aren't actually "decent human beings"; what they are would actually be narcissists that get their jollies by demonstrating false empathy towards others. You can about guarantee that if you told the average "No to the Death Penalty" types that a condition of their views being enacted would be to have an actual murderer or two as life-long roommates...? Yeah; there'd be a different tack taken.
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