Parents need to be part of the conversation

Re: “Aurora shootings should cause panic,” Nov. 21 editorial

Your Sunday editorial contains the word “parents” only once.

You attribute the shootings at Aurora Central High School and Hinkley High School to “gun violence,” as though it were an event like a tornado or a flood. No.

Teenage children are shooting each other — sentient human beings are shooting each other. The teens are the agents here — and the victims; the guns are the tools. Phrases like ”gun violence” mask the truth. Bullets don’t just fall out of the sky like hailstones.

Where are these kids’ parents? Where are the mothers and fathers and other adult family members? Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson has it exactly right when she calls on the parents to get involved, know what their kids are doing, and take responsibility. You can call on elected officials like Mayor Mike Coffman or Gov. Jared Polis to act. But don’t expect them to know or control what individual teens are doing in their homes, cars, and schools.

The parents need to ask their kids, “What is going on?” The teens need to ask themselves, “What are we doing?”

Blame the shooters. And ask the kids being shot, “How are you involved in this?”

Almost everything else you wrote is just a distraction or an excuse. Putting the burden on the shoulders of the Aurora Police Department does nothing helpful. Telling officials to “spare no expense” doesn’t cut it. You’re right that “Something is broken.” Yes, and it’s at the individual and family level. Let’s all face that fact, and deal with it.

Don Vogel, Denver

And away you go, blaming policing for the problem of kids shooting kids, without one mention of Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson’s comments about parents stepping up.

Stepping up, in the words of one woman on a recent newscast, means surveilling kids, knowing where they are, who they are with, who they are contacting on social media, what they are keeping secret in their rooms. Chief Wilson is simply asking more parents to be more vigilant.

Gosh, what a notion! You bring ’em into the world, then raise ’em to be good citizens!

Sadly, our culture has become one of single parents who haven’t the moral courage to raise their progeny to decent humanity. Kids are a 25hour-a-day, 8-day-a-week job.

Until we figure this out and bring parents to book for their kids’ wrongdoing, this will continue to be a problem.

Along with many others, I am a little tired of society or the police or the schools or the politicians being blamed for what is so obviously the fault of individuals!

Carolyn Wiedmer, Littleton