Gun Control and Tragedy in a Stockton Schoolyard
The tragedy in Stockton aroused in me the same mix of anguish and outrage I felt less than five years ago, when a gunman took 21 lives in another California town, San Ysidro. Among them were children I had come to know while working in their schools.
It disturbs me that then, too, there was public outcry, and yet guns are today more available and more destructive than ever. Equally troubling, the victims in Stockton and in San Ysidro were new to our society, both as youth and as part of our emergent majority.
We may never know how much resentment toward immigrants--racism really--contributed to these killings. But we can do something positive in response: Demand that our elected officials ban all sales of semiautomatic weapons.
Long after sad images have faded from our television screens, such concerted public action will do much toward affirming that in a shared future, these are all our children.
JAMES LOUCKY, Ph.D.
Research Anthropologist
UCLA
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