Shooting with a 6-year-old raises cultural questions

He was 6 years old, in Newport News, Virginia’s first-grade class. Police say he pointed his handgun at his teacher. then he pulled the trigger. People across the country didn’t know what to do.

Even in a country that is not a member of the European Union gun violence It is unfortunately all too common to hear the tale of a small boy who bought a gun. There has been finger-pointing. Confusion. Confused? Masses struggle with deeply unsettling feelings. These are questions: How is this possible? It is where in our national consciousness should it be?

“It is almost impossible to wrap our minds around the fact that a 6-year-old first-grader brought a loaded handgun to school and shot a teacher,” Mayor Phillip Jones Jan. 6. “However, this is exactly what our community is grappling with today.”

It’s not just his community, though, and it wasn’t just that day. It’s a country filled with people who know exactly how they feel about everything. Many are attempting to do this. In a land awash in hot takes, it’s a head-scratcher. A heart-scratcher, even.

“I never thought elementary students being the shooter was a possibility we would ever see,” says Kendra Newton, a first-grade teacher in Florida.

It may be because the case is different from what most people are used to. Jennifer Talarico, a psychology professor at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, believes the case hits differently in part because it violates society’s expectations for both school shootings (of which there were two others elsewhere in the country that day) and childhood itself.

“Sadly, we have schemas, we have rubrics, we have archetypes for school shootings in this country. We have a sort of script for these things,” said Talarico, who has studied how people remember indirectly experienced events. “Using the phrase ‘school shooting’ as a shorthand leads us to develop that story in our heads, and when the facts of the case are so different … that is what is surprising.”

Americans typically view childhood as an encapsulation of the best of our society and values, Talarico says — innocence, fun, joy, love. Anything that challenges that deep-seated view unearths complicated questions about the culture and community in which a child is being raised — whether it be local culture and community or the entire nation.

“That’s some hard self-reflection,” she says. “That is why the story is resonating with people.”

Americans are left struggling with a scenario that doesn’t fit into any bucket. But as jarring as that may feel, there’s a danger in trying to force the incident into a familiar framework, says Marsha Levick, chief legal officer and co-founder of the Juvenile Law Center.

She believes Americans have become “so stuck in a place of punishment” that they have lost the ability to have conversations outside those boundaries. By labeling the shooting with the loaded word “intentional,” Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew is inviting people to view it as a criminal act, Levick asserts.

“That is ludicrous. It is absurd. It is utterly inconsistent with science and what we know about human development and child development,” she says. “Let’s own that. This was not a criminal act.”

Levick would like law enforcement to acknowledge that “this is not our lane,” as it did more than two decades ago in one of the few cases from the recent past that bears some resemblance to the Virginia shooting. A 6-year-old boy was shot and killed by his father. shot and killed a classmate in Michigan in 2000Arthur Busch, Genesee County’s Prosecuting Attorney, did not pursue the boy. He instead pursued those who had access to the gun.

In an interview last week, Busch said he’s been surprised by the repeated use of “intentional” by Newport News police.

“It was like fingers on a chalkboard when I heard the police say it was intentional,” he said. “We don’t call it intentional when it’s a 6-year-old. … He’s not old enough to have intent.”

Busch, who became a defense lawyer and retired in 2018, recalls visiting the boy at a group house and getting into a small chair to talk. He proudly displayed pictures of his favorite toys and coloring pages. They smiled and revealed that two of their front teeth were missing. Then they discussed the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy.

“He was excited because he knew he was going to get candy,” Busch said. “It was quite clear that he was not hatching any diabolical plots. He was a normal little child. He was a baby, pretty much.”

Busch recalled being stunned when he was notified about the shooting in 2000. “I just couldn’t wrap my head around that,” he said. But he knew immediately he wouldn’t bring any charges.

“The only thing to do with that boy is get him out of that situation, find the best place for him,” Busch said. “This kid had probably never seen love in his life. We needed to wrap our arms around him as a community, and love and protect him.”

The Virginia case will likely spark controversy about gun control, school safety and school safety. But Moira O’Neill, who led New Hampshire’s Office of the Child Advocate for five years, says anyone feeling shaken by the incident can take a few simple steps. Research has shown that giving children a sense belonging is the best way for them to develop and maintain resilience.

In short: Don’t let your shock paralyze you. You can take steps to show respect for children in your community.

“This is not a big commitment. This is simply knowing the kids, knowing their names, and giving the impression if they need help they can ask,” she said. “If neighbors choose to settle with being shocked, without thinking through ways they can contribute to child well-being and safety, they are sending the message that the children are not valued.”

It remains to be seen if all the reflection on the Virginia shooting will lead to changes. Talarico, whose work includes studying the “memory-laden language” that often surrounds big events, says imperatives like “Never Forget” don’t always lead to sweeping action — particularly when it comes to guns.

“’Never Forget’,” she says, “hasn’t effectively translated to ‘Never Again.’”

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This report was contributed by Denise Lavoie, an Associated Press journalist from Richmond, Virginia.