Teenagers Take Pledge to Stop Gun Violence

The pledge sounds so simple: “I will never take a gun to school. I will never use a gun to settle a dispute. I will use my influence with my friends to keep them from using guns to settle disputes.”

High school students already know they aren’t allowed to carry weapons of any kind.

But what if you got every student in your school to sign the pledge? Wouldn’t that be a powerful message for the parents? Wouldn’t that sink in to at least some folks who are nuts enough to think that waving a gun can bring a productive conclusion to a dispute?

A student at Loara High School in Anaheim discovered on the Internet that high schools across the country were joining today in an effort called “A Pledge Against Gun Violence.”

A member of Loara’s student government, he was supported by the group’s advisor, psychology teacher Paul Chylinski, who organized a similar effort last year.

“I think it’s great,” Chylinski said. “You need to make students aware of gun violence, especially after what happened at Kennedy.”

A Deadly Reaction

He was referring to the fatal shooting Monday of Kennedy High School senior Brandon Ketsdever. Ketsdever and two friends had apparently been pulling a Halloween prank, stealing a plastic pumpkin from a home in Buena Park, when the homeowner confronted them with a gun.

The homeowner, who pleaded not guilty to murder charges Wednesday, said the gun went off by accident. But you don’t have to sign a pledge card to understand the idiocy of his having the gun in his hand in the first place.

But maybe these pledges can be a step toward making the next generation the first to enact sane gun laws.

Mary L. Grow, organizer of this Minnesota-based pledge drive, now in its fourth year, thinks of it as a national Town Hall meeting.

“It’s a way to empower young people to deal with the issue themselves,” Grow said. “Students don’t want adults talking around them.”

Grow, 58, a former college language instructor, has long been involved with gun-control issues. Five years ago she was part of a silent march on Washington in which 38,000 pairs of shoes, representing gun victims, were placed all around the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial. The idea came to her then--well before the Jonesboro or Littleton or Paducah school shootings--that young people are the most vulnerable victims.

She began to organize her national pledge day and got a huge boost when then-Sen. Bill Bradley agreed to sponsor a Senate resolution supporting it. That heavyweight on her resume got the attention of groups like the National Assn. of Student Councils and the National PTA, who now support her.

Last year, close to 2 million student pledges were signed, and Grow expects even more to do so this year.

She won’t get much help, however, from Orange County. I called more than two dozen high schools and didn’t find any of them participating except Loara. Other areas, however, are showing more enthusiasm.

At John Marshall High School in Los Angeles, the pledge drive was organized by senior Evaristo Vasquez, who is in Washington this week as part of the “Voices Against Violence” group meeting with President Clinton.

“So many people think of Los Angeles as gangs and crime,” Vasquez said when I reached him at the conference. “I wanted people to know there was something positive at our school.”

At Southwest High School in Minneapolis, which held its pledge day earlier this week because of teacher conferences, students heard from Bobby Brown, a high school senior left a paraplegic after a drive-by shooting.

At Northfield High School in Northfield, Minn., students called out the names of youngsters killed by gun violence in the schools the last two years. One read a poem written by a shooting victim in this year’s Columbine High School killing spree in Littleton, Colo. Afterward, the vast majority of the school population filled out pledge cards.

Triggers to Misery

Most students know that guns on campus are not their only worry from gun violence. Vasquez, for example, has a cousin who was left a paraplegic from a drive-by shooting.

Maybe you recall one of the publicized school shootings last year at a high school in Springfield, Ore. A student killed his parents, then headed to Springfield High where he killed two students and wounded eight others.

One of those wounded was Richard Peek, 18. He said then he wanted to dedicate his life to seeing to it that no young person ever died from a gun again.

Last week, Peek was shot to death. He was on a hunting trip with his brother when his brother’s hunting rifle accidentally went off and killed him.

Doing something about gun violence is a cause worth pursuing vigorously at the student level. At Loara, a group of student leaders will be at school at 6 a.m. today, finishing up posters to urge others to sign that pledge.

As a parent, you’d have to be proud of the kid who organized that Loara effort.

That kid happens to be my son. And indeed I am.

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Jerry Hicks’ column appears Monday and Thursday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling (714) 564-1049 or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com