To CNN, Murders Like My Son's Don't Count: An Open Letter From a Parent
My son Blair was an honors student. He was the most important thing in my life. And in 2007 a gang member killed him -- and injured four others -- on his way home from school on a public bus with many of his classmates. Blair died trying to save another girl's life. He was just another innocent bystander whose life was cut short because a gun was in the wrong hands.
But to CNN and other media outlets, murders like my son's don't count. You see, they looked at the list of 74 school shootings and picked and chose the 15 they thought were worthy of mentioning. Their reasoning? Because our innocent sons and daughters are killed by gang members, they don't deserve a spot on the list.
According to their own count of school shootings, the ones with "personal arguments, accidents and alleged gang activities and drug deals" don't merit mention.
Whenever a gun is fired at school, parents are rightfully terrified. Students are rightfully terrified. Try explaining to a shocked and devastated community that the school shooting it's mourning is disqualified because the gun was fired as the result of a "personal argument."
I suppose if your innocent son is shot by a gang member, it doesn't make the cut. Or if he was shot in an "accidental" shooting (how it's an accident that a gun wound up on school grounds to begin with is beyond me). Or if he pulled a gun out in a classroom and shot himself. Or if he got into a "personal argument" and was shot down in the type of mild playground fight that happens every day in schools, but turned deadly in that instance because a gun was present.
Maybe I should be giving CNN credit because they've managed to do something Washington politicians could not. They've reduced the number of school shootings across the country. But their insistence that 59 school shootings -- which have killed 25 people and injured 40 others -- don't matter isn't much consolation to parents like me.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/annette-holt/cnn-school-shooting-stats_b_5489805.html?utm_hp_ref=tw
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