One day, I was scrolling through my feed on Snapchat, and just like any college student doing their best at procrastination, I began to view the CNN story that provides quick snippets of news. To my alarm, I viewed stories relating to the shootings of two six-year-old boys. Although the two boys were from different places and the shootings occurred almost a year apart, they are still similar in how both acts were senseless and could have been avoided.
The first story was that of Jacob Hall from South Carolina. He was just an ordinary child playing out on his elementary school playground when, out of nowhere, an unnamed old minor of fourteen years randomly drove down and shot him, as well as another student and teacher on sight. Upon further research, I found out that the other student and teacher were released from the hospital quite quickly due to sustaining minor injuries, but Jacob Hall, on the other hand, remains in critical condition. Since the fourteen-year-old is a minor, he can not be named, but information was released that before attacking the elementary school, he shot and killed his father before calling his grandparents saying that he did it because he "hated his life". This just causes me to think that all of this could have been avoided if the parents, or grandparents, had paid more attention to the child. Possibly, if they had provided more care and guidance, this child would not have grown up with the idea that it was correct to end another's life just because he did not like his own.
In relation, the shooting of six-year-old Jeremy Mardis from Louisiana was also a senseless shooting that occurred a year ago in September 2015. He was sitting buckled in the backseat of his father's car when, without a warrant, his father was pulled over and shot on sight despite video evidence of absolutely no resistance on his part being shown. My first thoughts to this are why we are just barely getting news of such a tragic event? And second, why would any officer voluntarily unload a full eighteen barrel gun on an innocent, conceding citizen, especially without checking for other passengers in the car? With great luck, Mardis' father made it out alive, but Jeremy was not so lucky. Jeremy died on sight, and currently, the officers who conducted such actions are on trial for his murder.
Two six-year-olds, two incidents, one dead, and one fighting for his life: all of which are connected by the senseless acts of inhumanity. All incidents that could have been avoided had one been more careful, more rational, or more considerate. I am not a parent nor an officer of the law, so I can say that I do not have the experience needed to qualify for an opinion giving advice, but I am a citizen who is an up stander and abides to the morals of common sense, therefore knowing what is right and what is wrong, and I can say that what happened in these shootings was all wrong. Children are our future, the ones whom our lives will be handed to when they come of age, so we must value and protect these innocents now so that they will do the same for us in the future.
