Sunday, March 29, 1998

Jonesboro dead may want to ask why, but they won't get an answer

By SANDY GRADY / Knight-Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON -- Their names were Natalie, Brittany, Stephanie and Paige Ann. In photos they wear fresh, impish smiles of 12- and 11-year-olds peddling Girl Scout cookies or heading for a pajama party.

You look at their pictures -- and the placid smile of heroic teacher Shannon Wright, who shielded another child -- and every face comes at you with a jolting puzzle.

The faces of the dead ask, "Why?"

Answers don't come easy. The faces strike you with baffled anger. Why would a couple of pint-size Rambos in camouflage outfits grab an arsenal of rifles and fire 27 high-powered slugs -- as though the crowd of school children was just a video game?

Shooting mayhem by a crazed adult can be unraveled by shrinks. But kids blowing apart kids is ultimate, numbing horror. We're stumped how innocence got twisted into evil. Until we know the nightmare visions in the heads of Mitchell Johnson, 13, and cousin Andrew Golden, 11, we grope in the dark.

Maybe it will come down to guns. Usually does. Hard to imagine the Jonesboro, Ark., kid murders happening any place but America, where weaponry is ubiquitous as Big Macs. Maybe we'll wait for Bill Clinton's experts to figure out the pattern of these kid shoot-'em-ups. Don't hold your breath.

Maybe Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, got close to the truth in blaming the child gunners on an epidemic of TV and movie violence.

"I don't know what else we'd expect in a culture where children are exposed to tens of thousands of murders on television and movies. We've desensitized human life," said a bitter Huckabee. "It's a cultural disease."

He's right. A National Television Violence Study says gunfire and gore on TV, despite the new ratings, isn't declining. Worse, says Northeastern University criminologist James Fox, are computer and arcade videos in which kids play-act at wasting people.

In TV crime shows, gangsta rap and videos, victims get knocked off cleanly: No pain, gaping wounds, screams. Is that what the Arkansas tyke shooters saw on the school ground -- symbolic targets?

Pull the trigger, man, it's a game. Or maybe we should blame schools. They don't gear up enough security, cops and metal detectors. Don't spot and counsel troublemakers before the firing starts. Sure, in hindsight, there were signals the Arkansas kid gunmen were destined to explode.

The 13-year-old told a girl, "Tomorrow you find out whether you live or die." He vowed to shoot a sixth-grade girl (who survived) because she broke up with him. "Nobody breaks up with me," he boasted. (Hey, it's the TV code: Cross me, you die.)

No shock the kid assassins weren't taken seriously. The national average is one counselor for 800 middle-school kids. Not easy to detect suicidal or homicidal dynamite.

What about parents? Early accounts say parents of the 13-year-old shooter were hard-working, middle-class folks, both postmasters. And yes, the dad raised his boy as a hunter and competition marksman from age 6. Here, I'd agree: When juveniles turn killers, the law should come down hard on parents. Seventeen states have such laws, not Arkansas.

In the end, it may come back to guns -- too many of them, too easy for a wacko kid to grab and go bonkers, a culture where shooting others becomes TV fantasy.

The 13-year-old's grandfather said in a CNN interview the boy stole three rifles from him. Doesn't matter. Guns are a way of life in Arkansas (75 percent own them). But shooting hardware is as plentiful on the streets of Philly, D.C. or Chicago.

Will we ever do anything about this ballistic epidemic in over-armed U.S.A.? Oh, the Jonesboro effect will dwindle.

There'll be no disarmament or even toning down the firepower while the National Rifle Association cowers politicians.

Except for "deep sorrow," the NRA stonewalled as though the Arkansas kid murderers used slingshots. "Lawful gun ownership had nothing to do with this tragedy," insisted gun-lobby spokesman Bill Powers.

Sure, there'll be hand-wringing by congressional blowhards about the Jonesboro deaths. They won't defy the NRA while campaign bucks flow. The gun lobby would even like to dismantle the Brady Bill and assault-weapon law.

Look at Australia, a tough, gun-happy country. A couple of years ago a nut case killed 35 people in Port Arthur. Within two weeks, the country banned sale and possession of assault-type guns and pump-action shotguns. Not in America.

"If the Jonesboro tragedy doesn't move Washington beyond tears and into action, what will?" fumed Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.

Nothing, senator.

You can blame TV crime shows, bloody videos, school counselors and parents. But the Jonesboro horror will fade -- until the next child gunner goes berserk.

Those smiling faces of Natalie, Brittany, Stephanie and Paige Ann ask for answers.

They'll get silence.