Savage Spawn by Jonathan Kellerman Page B

ease with which we allow kids and guns to interact, we have no right to be astonished at incidents of headline-grabbing carnage accomplished by dangerous boys. Once again, the chief surprise is that it doesn’t happen more often.
    Back off, NRA, I’m not talking about trampling on any adult’s constitutional right to bear arms. Let’s sidestep the entire gun-control debate but accept the painfully obvious fact that no
kids
should ever be allowed access to pistols, rifles, and shotguns. Children and teens are simply insufficiently socialized to handle implements designed, no matter how you gussy them up with clubs and guilds and marksmanship contests, to
kill
. We restrict minors from driving and establish a minimum age for voting because we understand the principle that minors have not yet attained full reasoning capability. Why in the world do we continue to allow them to play around with Rugers and Colts and Mosslers?
    The very fact that we even
debate
the point seems ludicrous. Then again, we are the country that lionizes the likes of Billy the Kid.
    When I proposed restricting children’s access to lethal weapons in my
USA Today
column, I received irate mail from gun freaks letting me know I’d missed the point completely and was probably a mushy-minded social reformer. The culprit for schoolyard shootings and similar abominations, according to these geniuses, wasn’t access to weapons, it was some nebulous concept labeled “societal breakdown.”
    Fine. Let’s assume society has indeed deteriorated to the point of damaging the psychological stability of our youngsters. Isn’t that all the
more
reason to keep them away from Messrs. Smith and Wesson et alia? The reluctance to make these commonsense decisions is truly astonishing.
    If separating kids from guns violates some rural or good-ol’-boy norm, so be it. It’s a
bad
norm. Wanna bond with your son? Go hiking, toss the football, play catch. Or even—and
this
is radical—sit down and
talk
to him. Maybe you can even discuss what masculinity is all about, how to temper assertiveness with kindness, why avoiding violence can be braver and more effective than lashing out.
    Yes, I’m talking about that old sissy stuff. The kind of effete chatter that leads to introspection rather than mass destruction. The kind of softhearted, softheaded mollycoddling that may even protect some little girl or boy from being sighted like quail on the hot asphalt of a schoolyard.
    Sure, a black market will develop in response to such gun laws, as it does with any prohibition. And sure, urban gangbangers will continue to get hold of weaponry. But the likes of Golden, Johnson, and Kinkel are a lot more likely to be inhibited from taking up arms in the service of psychopathy. They got
their
arsenals from Mom and Dad and Gramps.
    Restricting children from having access to firearms should be backed up with real judicial muscle—quick and unconditional imposition of jail or reformatory sentences for possession of pistols, rifles, or shotguns for youthful offenders, and even longer jail time, combined with outrageously high monetary fines, for the adults who allow guns to fall into the hands of minors. Zero tolerance is needed because the stakes are high. It’s worked to almost completely eliminate drunk driving in the Scandinavian countries, in the absence of any concomitant decrease in overall Scandinavian alcoholism.
    Two other quick fixes: The first is to
take the warnings of violent kids seriously
. When they say they’re going to kill someone, they mean it. Arrest them for making terrorist threats. The second is to
take your time figuring out what to do with them
. Be extremely reluctant to release them back into the community. (I’m no constitutional scholar, but the fact that we routinely restrict the rights of minors via curfew laws and limited licenses suggests there would be few successful legal challenges to