Current Affairs

How Safe are our Kids?

Scene of Amish Tragedy

I was listening to the radio this morning whilst driving into work, when I heard the tragic news that a fifth girl had died from her injuries that she sustained in the shooting at an Amish school in Pennsylvania on Monday. The sad thing was she wasn't even in her teens, she like the others killed was a complete innocent. The worst thing though was that she was clinically shot, execution style by warped and sick excuse for a human Charles Carl Roberts. It wasn't even a saving grace that the sick bastard shot himself, this only added to the trauma.
But do we ever learn? No we don't and here is why...

Let us go back 10 years to perhaps the most tragic, unforgivable and unfathomable events in the UK's most recent history.

On 13th March 1996, Thomas Hamilton a disgraced Scout master and known to the police went into a local primary school armed with two pistols and two revolvers, and 743 rounds of ammunition. By the end of his shooting spree he lay dead along with 16 children aged just 5 and 6, and the children's teacher. No motive was given, none can ever excuse it.

NEVER, EVER forget them

When I heard about this I was watching open-mouthed, tears streaking down my face. Even now ten years later it still upsets me. But what lessons have we taken from Dunblane? Have all those poor little angels given their lives in vain? I think very sadly they have, although new security issues have been put in place in the UK, they are nowhere near enough.

I have since Dunblane wanted to go back and visit my old school to see how much it has changed, I haven't been able to as yet but I know someone who has. He just walked through the gates, walked to his old form room which was empty due to it been break time, and wasn't challenged once. No challenges, no one was really that bothered about him. Now take the same situation but have the guy walking in carry a Uzi under his jacket, and a few spare mags in his pocket.... Need I say more?

The worst thing is these maniacs, these alien life forms (Nobody can be part of the Human species to do that) are targeting our biggest pride and joy, our kids, just so that they can be noticed. Invariably, they kill themselves so can't be brought to justice. My justice would be simple, castration with a rusty blunt knife, let the wound fester for 6 months and then turn them over to the parents of the kids they killed.

The other thing I have noticed is the amount of these that our happening, in the States the Amish shooting was the third at a school in a week. Then you have the worst and probably saddest school massacre of all time in Beslan, Russia.

Chechen rebels took over a school and held over 1200 people hostage, the majority of them children, their only crime to be Russian. By the end of the 3-day siege 344 people lay dead, 186 of them were kids. Once again I cried, I always do if kids are involved.
I doubt that anything like that will ever happen again,

But then we thought that about Dunblane didn't we, and how many 'Dunblanes' have there been since 1996?

Every time that I get home from work it is with a sense of relief that I see my son and daughter smiling up at me, and it makes me grateful they are still with me. My heart goes out to the families of those that lost their lives in the most recent of the tragic school shootings. I only wish that there were people out there that did not harbour so much hatred toward children, and that the governments of the world would do more to prevent these tragedies happening again.

In the meantime I cuddle and kiss my kids goodnight and hope that I will be seeing their smiling faces when I return home from work