Dealing With School Violence

The Times can argue without fear of contradiction that the Los Angeles School Board must act to protect the vast majority of students from the tiny percentage who tote weapons to class.

But the editors’ obsession with certain kinds of weapons obviously affected the choice of headline for the editorial “Getting Tough on Guns in Schools” (March 22).

The editorial reports that the school board formed a 65-member task force made up of educators and parents “shortly after a junior high school student stabbed his English teacher last year.” Did the student stab his teacher with a gun?

The problem of violence in public schools is one of a vicious minority whose rearing has left them with no inhibitions as far as using force to satisfy any whim is concerned, and the climate they create leading other students to arm themselves out of fear.

Certainly students who carry guns on campus should be expelled. So should those who carry knives, ice picks, brass knuckles, blackjacks, nunchakus , or other weapons.

And beyond banning weapons, school disciplinary policies must punish students who use strong-arm violence as well. It is necessary to clearly separate the source of social violence on and off campus--the sociopathic brutes our society is breeding--from the particular instruments these brutes choose to use for bullying, maiming, and killing their victims.

LEE W. SMITH

West Los Angeles