You know I
think perhaps I should change the title of this column to
something like….”Weirdness in America”. About the time I get all
geared up to write about some lighthearted topic of amusement, I
get slammed with some item that just defies common sense. For
example, here I was working on a piece about President Bush
meeting with the French President this week, when this news
article hits my eye and put an immediate stop to my attempts at
humor. In this country the other day, a court hearing was held
for a sixteen year old male who had murdered his ex-girl friend
at school. Now, he didn’t just happen to get mad and do this,
no, no, no, this individual took not one, but two, butcher
knives to school with him and hunted this girl down in the
hallway and stabbed her to death. These weren’t small paring
knives; these were eight-inch carving knives. He had to think
about what he was going to do when he packed those puppies up
that morning on his way to school. Then he supposedly chased
this young girl down and stabbed her over and over until she
died.
Now, you want
the best part? This hearing was held to determine if this young
man should be tried as a juvenile or an adult. Get this…his
defense lawyer says, ”He was the victim of child abuse including
whippings and he treated women poorly because he was modeling
behavior his father had shown.” Is this a crock or what? Who
wasn’t the victim of whippings? My Dad used to wear the pants
off of me for virtually no reason at all, but I didn’t think it
gave me a license to hit the streets in search of someone to
murder. Do you mean to tell me that if we discipline our
children then we risk the potential possibility of them going
off to the mall and committing mass murder? What about those law
suits where the parents didn’t take control and the kids ended
up badly? Then the kids excuse was…”I was never taught to
respect others and so I’m not responsible for murdering, raping,
robbing …you name it…. someone.” So, here we have a young man
who the court determines should not be tried as an adult and
gets sent off to some juvenile center for several years because
his father displayed “poor parental modeling skills”? Maybe we
need to lock the Dad up for being a bad example.
Have we gone
insane or what? Here we have a young man who can drive a car to
school, have the malice and forethought to provision himself
with not one, but two large knives and stabs a young girl
repeatedly to death in a public school and we are what? We are
worried that “If he were sent to an adult prison he would be
more dangerous when released “? Come on, how much more dangerous
could he be? I mean taking butcher knives to school and stabbing
someone to death doesn’t sound like pushing someone on the
jungle gym to me, does it to you?
To add insult
to injury, various persons involved reported that this young man
has never shown any shred or emotion or regret for his actions.
I suppose this is the result of not having enough birthday
parties at Chuck ‘E Cheese or something equally crazy. Where
does the concept of personal responsibility come into play? You
mean to tell me that all abused children or adults get a pass to
commit mayhem on our society since they somehow failed to
understand the concept that hurting someone or causing pain to
others is wrong? I know people are abused, I was abused, good
grief, and I managed to grow up without hurting someone. Abuse
is wrong, but so is murder. The defense stated that their client
deserved a second chance. What about the dead girl? Who does she
see about getting her second chance?
