In The Stingray Shuffle, a 2003 novel by Tim Dorsey, a character reads the news, and notes to his companion, “Second-grader brings gun to school. Jesus, what ever happened to just sticking out your tongue?” That same character, later in the novel, recites a seemingly random list of pleasures, which include the name, “Marjory Stoneman Douglas.” I was reading that book in April, 2018 and when I read Douglas’ name, I put down the paperback, and thought about the murder of 17 people on February 14th, 2018.
When I was a young boy, I got a train set for Christmas. I would create challenges for the smoke-emitting and chugging electric train by raising the track with objects to create miniature inclines. The train stopped running one morning and I placed my wet mouth on the rails and screamed, “Run train!” An electric charge surged through my mouth and burned my gums black. I was too young to know the consequences of those actions, but I am purposely touching the third rail in this column.
On February 14th, 2018 — Valentine’s Day for most of us in this country — a 19-year-old walked into his former high school and, using a legally purchased Smith & Wesson M&P 15 .223 semi-automatic AR-15-style weapon, took the lives of 14 students and 3 staff members. The young man’s weapon of choice was modeled on a gun that had been designed to deliver maximum killing power on the field of battle, to deliver death and disablement to enemy combatants. It was not intended as a tool to bring down deer, ducks, rabbits or grouse. For those among us who are bristling, shifting our weight toward the front of our seats and preparing retorts and rebuttals, I’ll not give you much to work with, for no rational argument can be mounted to contend that the events of last February 14th did not happen, and did not happen with the weapon described above.
Some years ago, my second bride told me of studies of young men’s brains and the prefrontal cortex, which is “critical to good judgement and the suppression of impulse,” with some studies claiming that critical judgement may not be properly developed until age 25. I “pish-toshed” the notion, saying that by the age of 25, I’d had two long-term jobs, married a woman who bore our child, and embarked on a career. When I slipped off the footpath of the “straight and narrow,” I chose, even without benefit of counsel, to step back onto it. And while I do not consider myself to be exceptional in most ways, I do now concede that psychologists and psychiatrists have better information than I do about the development of the prefrontal cortex. In the state of Indiana, you must be 15 years old and enrolled in “an approved driver education course” before you can get a learner’s permit to drive an automobile. In New Jersey, new drivers must be 16, and enrolled with a licensed driving school, and must be supervised while driving until the age of 17. These seem to be common-sense and reasonable requirements and restrictions, based on known facts about young people’s skills and judgements, and likely, on statistics about accidents and injuries by drivers of a certain age.
In 2012 I remember hearing a newscaster say, “twenty students marked absent, forever,” and I cried. And I cried again in February 2018 and stopped in pain when I read in a novel, “Marjory Stoneman Douglas.” And I wonder, still, how it is that we lack the ability to limit our children’s exposure to the war-like sounds of gunfire.