EDITORIAL Worried about kids at school? Good. Turn in your guns
When the pastor of St.
Patricks Church in Kansas City, Mo., was approached by concerned parents
worried about the safety of the parish school, he decided to act.
In the wake of recent school shootings, he held a meeting for
parents. According to an account in The Kansas City Star, Fr.
Gerald Waris told the nearly 100 parents who came to the evening meeting that
the school would do all it could to provide a safe environment.
He said staff would take special training, that the school would
more stringently enforce a requirement for visitors to sign in and wear badges.
A speaker was scheduled to talk to the school children about bullying.
Then Waris switched to what parents could do. First, check the
kids backpacks everyday to make sure there were no objects students could
use to harm themselves or others. And, he said, parents could remove the guns
from their homes.
He offered to take any guns and lock them up until the school year
is over. It would be done in complete confidence. If an owner wanted the gun
returned, the priest would hand it over.
There were no takers. No discussion. No reaction, even from one
parent who had threatened to take his children from the school, he was so
fearful for their safety. He owned guns, by the way. He admitted to Waris that
he did. No doubt the guns are much like the ones used when kids killed kids at
other schools.
From all indications, the parent who said he owned a gun and the
other parents are not unusual. Kids keep killing kids with their parents
guns. Sometimes kids use guns they own themselves. Parents worry, they ask
questions, they wonder how such things could happen. And they keep the
guns.
National Catholic Reporter, April 6,
2001
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