I’ve been thinking about these school shootings lately – wondering why it seems like troubled kids think shooting up their schools, killing their schoolmates, is the solution to their problems. It’s not like it never happened before. In the 60’s, Charles Whitman, a former Marine crawled up a tower on the campus at the University of Texas and shot many students from there. An old neighbor of mine in Texarkana lost his son and wife in that shooting. Later they said that Whitman had a brain tumor and maybe that was why he acted the way he did. That may explain his actions but not those of so many kids today.
Some people think the reason more kids are taking to violence is that we’ve taken the teaching of the 10 Commandments out of our classrooms. I could be wrong, but I seem to remember the 10 Commandments hanging on the wall in my sixth grade classroom. It was next to a picture of George Washington that looked like he was coming up out of white puffy cloud.
While I don’t remember it, I could have been there that day the school official came by. I was often asked to stay after school in Dubach to write lines. I guess it was to help improve my penmanship, which to be honest, to this day, is still not very good.
Back then I was a nosy opinionated kid. Not like I am now. I can only imagine how the conversation with that school official might have gone:
Me: Excuse me, sir. I couldn’t help but notice. Why are you taking the 10 Commandments down off our wall?
Official: Because it may offend someone.
Me: Like who?
Official: People with other religious beliefs
Me: Methodists?
Official: No, not Methodists. Like Muslims or perhaps Buddhists
Me: Do the object to all of the commandments or just a few of them?
Official: I’m guessing all of them
Me: Do they have commandments?
Official Well, I’m not sh…
Me: Maybe we could put their commandments up on our wall for a while. That would seem fair. Could we do that?
Official I’m afraid not. We have to remove all references to religion from our schools.
Me: Oh. The Sixth Commandment says we’re not to murder anybody. If you take those down, aren’t you scared someone might come to our school one day and murder someone?
Official: Not really
Me: But President Washington can stay, right? He looks like he’s rising up from a puffy cloud. Can he stay or was he religious?
Official: I think he was religious. But we can leave him up for the time being
Me: Until he offends someone?
Official: That’s correct
Not too long ago, I read an interview with Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson. In it he was telling members of the Republican Party – that if they wanted to regain the White House – they needed to get “Godly.” He said that our country’s success as a nation is due to our religious foundation and noted that foundation is slowly being allowed to erode.
Maybe taking down the 10 Commandment started the ball rolling. Something must be missing when more and more people nowadays think they need to load a bag full of firearms and ammunition and go to a mall, movie theater, or school and shoot innocent people.
Maybe it would help if we put the 10 Commandments back up on the wall …and if we all got a little more Godly.
Randy lives in Minden. He can be reached at planorand@yahoo.com.