Article May 17, 1999 Issue

Disarming the children

A healing response to violence against children

By Rosalie E. Dunbar

By all accounts , Littleton, Colorado, is a good place, one where violent acts just don't happen. But a few weeks ago, two teenagers who were identified with a group of local misfits killed or wounded more than thirty people. Some say the cause of such incidents is "moral poverty" or a "cultural virus." If so, what will eliminate the poverty? What will heal the virus? Most important of all, what will stop the killing?

A first step is to refuse to ignore evil. The second is to love enough to stop it. Many times, those who engage in violent crimes have tended to be loners, misfits, people whom the majority chooses to ignore or even to joke about. Sometimes these individuals have caring parents, but still choose an antisocial lifestyle. The misfits are not the evil, but the belief that anyone can be ignored or neglected with impunity does open the door for evil behavior—for an insistence on being noticed, for the buildup of anger that apparently demands detonation.

This detonation can be prevented if we're willing to do more than shake our heads in disbelief or dwell on the heartbreak of seeing young people suffer. We disarm the evil as we embrace each community, including our own, in God-based love. Only this love is powerful enough and strong enough to truly repair the breaches that lead people to feel separated from each other and from society.

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