Yet another day. The most powerful democracy of the world woke up to the news of another shooting in a school killing one child and teacher injuring several others. But this time the difference was that the shooter was a girl who shot herself dead after the heist.
A 15-year-old shooter was a student at the school Natalie Rupnow, who also went by the name Samantha girl opened fire in a Wisconsin school classroom on Monday leaving a fellow student and a teacher dead and wounding six others before killing herself with the handgun.
The shooting took place in a mixed-grade study hall at the Abundant Life Christian School, which has 420 students from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade on its rolls.
There have been 322 school shootings in the United States this year, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database website. That is rated as the second highest total of any year since 1966 – topped only by last year’s total of 349 such shootings.
Monday’s shoot was a rarity in that it was carried about by a girl. Who account for about 3% of all U.S. mass shooting, studies show.
Only last month President Biden had announced new laws to control gun laws
Nothing happened. And nothing was expected. Not because it was ordered by Biden but because the country he presides over is USA.
Now that the new President elect Donald Trump is all set to be sworn in on January 20, 2025 the question a lot of concerned parents are asking is will the New Year be any different
The gun scenario in the US is scary.
Owning a gun is considered a right in the US and not a status symbol as in India. And ironically, when children use these guns they are treated as adult criminals. The life-term to 15-year-old Ethan Crumbley who had opened fire at Oxford High School on Nov. 30, 2021, with a semi-automatic handgun his father had bought him as a Christmas gift a day earlier, killing 4 students and 6 injured took the number of Juveniles in jail without parole in the US to 74.
This data is only about 19 of 50 States in USA where children below 18 can be arrested.
Human Rights and Child Rights advocates in the largest democracy of the world India assert that this phenomenon reflects more the prevalence of the gun culture than rise in Juvenile crime.
As ABC News points out, there have been 40,136 homicide deaths in 2023 in the USA due to gun fire. What is less highlighted is the fact that half of these deaths were suicides. Easy access to guns stands out starkly from these stats but people are not asking questions because the National Rifle Association set up in 1871, holds a sway on emotions of people and politicians of both parties.
Says a BBC report, “In 2022, the NRA received $97m (£78m) from membership dues. That is down by more than 40% from its peak year, 2018.In 2021, it spent $4.2m on lobbying, according to non-partisan US research firm OpenSecrets. The NRA also grades members of Congress from A to F on their perceived friendliness to gun rights. Those ratings can cost pro-gun control candidates their seats.”
So strong and aggressive is this lobby that it manages to sway emotions in favour of more guns even after a huge tragedy. Says Upkar Chopra, an Indian born engineer, settled in Virginia, the Headquarters of NRA,” So powerful are they that when the country was reeling under the impact of school children killed in a shoot-out, instead of asking parents to keep their guns under lock and key the NRA managed to persuade the Administration to supply more guns to teachers and staff for self-defence.”
This scenario reflects the disturbed and distressed state of the common man in the country which is reflected in the number of crimes by its children.
Not that children in under developed countries such as India are not committing ‘heinous’ crimes which includes robbery, dacoity, rapes and murders which is duly reported by the National Crime Reports Bureau (NCRB) but murders form the least fraction of this. And by guns, hardly any.
India made international headlines in December 2012 when a 23-year-old medico (nicknamed Nirbhaya by the media) was brutally gang-raped in a moving bus by six persons and later succumbed to her injuries.
There were candle light marches and protests near Parliament demanding hanging for the culprits but what is remarkable is that despite all this, a 17-year-old involved in this gruesome crime was spared the gallows and released after completing a reform home term as per the Juvenile Justice Act.
This has to be understood in the context that policing in India is much more lax and the number of have-nots is much higher than in developed countries.
Says Amod K Kanth, former DGP and Founder Mentor of Prayas JAC Society, an NGO working for Child Rights for 36 years, “Despite dealing with such large number of juveniles we in India have a very strong Juvenile Justice Act. This ensures that the offending children called ‘Children in conflict with Law’ can be tried only in Juvenile Courts. Due to a surge in crime involving minors the laws have been tweaked to bring down the age of juveniles from 18 to 16 for heinous crimes. But even with this change juveniles are neither handcuffed, nor sent to adult jail nor awarded life-term and death penalty. And till a child is seven he cannot be charged for any crime.”
His is an important voice because in 2005, Kanth was honoured in the White House by George Bush as a “Trafficking in Person (TIP) Report Hero Acting to End Modern Slavery”.
A US equivalent to institutes like Prayas is the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)that gives grants to improve its juvenile delinquency prevention programs.
But given the current scenario its Vision statement, “Youth contact with the Justice System should be rare, fair and beneficial” appears a Utopian mirage.
Prayas in its 36 years of existence has proved that giving a second chance to ‘Juveniles in Conflict with Law’ has been miraculous.
One of its inmates who had murdered his sister’s assailant at age 13 is a renowned painter whose works adorn the Rashtrapati Bhavan (President’s House).
Several children in ‘Conflict with Law’ in India have set up their own start-ups and are doing very well in life. This is also because of a provision in Juvenile Justice Law that the records of a deviant child would be eliminated for ever.
The belief in the innate human qualities of a ‘human child’ (not always Juvenile delinquent) and of course, denying access to guns makes the big difference.
While the ‘civilised’ nations like US, UK, Europe view these children as criminals, the developing countries like India believe in reforming them by offering them a second chance.
The author is a veteran journalist and social thinker. Views are personal.
