No matter where one stands on the gun issue, one fact will always remain true. Those who intend to commit a crime will find a way to obtain a gun. They can always find a source, albeit illegal, that will provide them with weapons for the right amount of money. It’s true in this country, and it’s true in every other country in the world.
School administrators need to take a look at inner-city schools and learn a lesson from them. They have analyzed the threat, i.e., drug dealers and gang members, and have allocated funds to provide resource personnel to protect their students while they are on school premises. The students of inner-city schools still have safety issues, but their issues lie with getting to and from school safely.
Students in suburban school districts can get to and from school safely. Their parents may drive them or they may drive themselves to school. The threat to their safety lies within the student body itself. Any one of the students in their school could, at any point in time, decide to commit a horrific crime. School districts need to allocate funds for adequate resource personnel to protect their students. Money cannot be the issue, as the life of just one of their students has to be worth more than any dollar amount.
School districts also need the media’s help to prevent these kinds of crimes. A psychologist needs to explain to the media that they are giving the perpetrators of these crimes exactly what they are looking for: notoriety. For a few brief days, the perpetrator gets to be the center of attention from the media. They will analyze his social posting and make him, in some sick way, famous. These individuals preplan their crimes and know what will happen to them. They want to have the highest body count possible in order to make the media focus on them for as long as possible.
There are lots of reasons we have gun violence in our schools: mental health issues, bullying, gratuitous violence in movies and games, and the breakdown of the family. We cannot solve all of these issues at once, but we can at least allocate the funds in order to protect our children, our most valuable resource, from the negative consequences of them. We can also refuse to name the perpetrators of these horrendous crimes; and not give them the notoriety they are seeking.
Note: These ideas are not original to me. They have been suggested by various people in their quest to prevent school violence. This post was written after a discussion with my son, Shawn, who is on the Safety Team. His team manages threat assessment and protection of large groups of people. These are just two areas that could be worked on in an attempt to protect our children. There are many more. We must take seriously the threat to our children and start somewhere.
This being the week after Valentine’s Day, it got me to thinking about love. When most of us think about a love for the ages, we think about Romeo and Juliet or Helen of Troy and Paris. Both tales envision star-crossed lovers, whose love ends in their own deaths or the deaths of hundreds of others. These couples’ stories, famous in literature, may or may not have been founded on real people. We look at them and think, now there is a love for the ages. But is it? Their love burned brightly, was short-lived and had tragic consequences. 
I owe a great debt to authors…of every kind. First, I owe a great debt to literary authors. They have educated and entertained me for decades. The first author who gave me a love for reading was Dr. Seuss. I started reading “On Beyond Zebra,” and when I couldn’t pronounce some of the words, my father took over and read it to me until tears ran down my face from laughter. Because of that author, I was hooked. Reading could be fun, entertaining, and heaven forbid…educational. 
Have you ever worked in the corporate world? Then you know who has the final say on most decisions…the Bean Counters. They will be in to let you know how the company is doing financially: assets vs. deficits. When your group has a great innovative idea and wants to implement it, they will also be there ultimately to tell you if it is feasible. Great ideas and innovations are lost many times because the Bean Counters won’t take the risk of trying something new. They quantify everything, and it’s always about the bottom line.
The other evening, I watched a segment on the nightly news where a man received a gift from his family. He had not been able to see colour his entire life, and his family had gotten the money together to buy him special glasses that allowed him to see colour. It was a total surprise to him. He opened the box and stared at the glasses. He put them on and looked around, then he started crying. I was very touched by the man’s reaction as he saw what he had been missing all of his life. 
Last week, I took a survey from the Harvard Digital Lab for Social Sciences. The questions were about how I viewed politicians. I didn’t rate them very high and didn’t think that just because they were politicians, they had a better grasp on a lot of the issues than the average person. (This weekend, I am watching the government shutdown, and quite frankly, it is confirming my opinions.) At the end of the survey, possibly because of my answers, the last question was, “Are you a Populist?”
I had been blogging about a month when I sent a blog post to a magazine that publishes them. The editor sent it back stating that they only publish blog posts from bloggers who have been blogging for at least six months. I could understand her reasoning and thought, “Great, no problem, I will send one in about five months.”
Most of us like the show, “Flea Market Flip.” We love to see the contestants take old furniture and make the pieces into something beautiful. We are amazed at the creations; and can’t believe that something that looked so broken and distressed could be transformed into something people will pay hundreds of dollars for.
A New Year is starting, and it is full of the breath of promise of things to come. The past year is almost gone, and takes with it the successes, failures, blessings, and trials that came with it. I don’t know about you, but I am thankful for its passing and hopeful for the year to come.
Heavenly Father,
Valerie Cullers 