Youth football shooting in Akron the latest case of a uniquely American illness
Because journalists can't type fast enough to keep up with all of the gun-related incidents in America, let's just focus on one egregious example closer to home.
On Aug. 20, a 7-year-old boy was shot in the chest as gunfire erupted at a pee-wee football game at Lane Field Park in Akron. A 19-year-old was shot in the leg.
What's next? A drive-by at a christening?
If you're so concerned about your safety that you feel the need to carry a gun at an event for 7- and 8-year-olds, do the world a favor: Stay home.
Police retrieved the weapon, a .45 caliber handgun, and arrested a 16-year-old for the incident, along with a 37-year-old woman at his home where they found another weapon. The adult was charged with possessing a gun in violation of her status as a felon.
Any 16-year-old who thinks it's perfectly fine to carry a gun is a victim, too, because it speaks to a pathology that's been warped by violence and a lack of impulse control, very likely enabled by domestic chaos.
His victim, little Tyren Thompson, who can't weigh more than 50 pounds, has undergone three surgeries as a result of this madness.
Last week, Akron Bengals team director Donte Swain told Canton Repository news partner News 5 Cleveland that his youth league has been pushing to play games in Buchtel High School's stadium rather than in an open park to reduce the risk of just such an incident. Akron has mandated that from now on two security officers must be present at games played on public fields.
The irony in all this is that the purpose of youth sports is to provide children with a safe and positive activity; to teach them self-discipline, teamwork and sportsmanship by participating in the most wholesome thing you can imagine, but since no good deed seems to go unpunished, they have been doubly victimized, as one youth league which scheduled some of its Sunday games in Akron has canceled them.
Swain told Channel 5 that Tyren's teammates have resumed practice and that "smiles are returning."
But they'll never get over it. Add them to the legions of American kids who have been traumatized.
Guns and field goals: Gun violence threatens an American tradition
Those who want to argue that it's only certain types of people who resort to gun violence are pretending that it's not a uniquely American sickness that has produced a torrent of blood and mayhem in every corner of this country.
If it hasn't yet happened in your suburb, keep living.
On Aug. 25, someone tried it in a small town, as Jason Aldean's song goes. Kids in Del City, Oklahoma — population, 21,000 — had to run for their lives after gunfire broke out during their high school football game. One person was killed.
Meanwhile, Washington Massillon High School and Northwest High School each started their school years with threats of violence.
Last week, students at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill were seen climbing out onto window ledges to avoid being shot by another student, who killed a professor.
Gun violence, particularly at youth sporting events, is in danger of becoming endemic. It's why school athletic associations publish statements asking adults to behave themselves. Too many parents have become vested in their kids' athletic potential in hopes that they've given birth to the next LeBron.
It's also why districts are constantly scrambling for game officials, who have decided there isn't enough money to put up with the abuse.
To make matters worse, in some parts of the country, youth sports leagues have been ensnared in sports gambling; a recipe for violence if ever there was one.
In his recent column about musicians being attacked onstage by their own fans, Vice correspondent Alex Abad-Santos contends that we've forgotten how to behave in public.
Perhaps youth sports leagues should just ban the public from attending games. Perhaps it's time to recapture the days when kids played perfectly fine without an audience; when they picked their own teams and learned how to negotiate disputes and the rules of engagement. Then again, such an action would punish too many innocent people who've done nothing wrong and who deserve to be on the sidelines cheering on their children.
We're a country that knows how to do big things. We're capable of protecting gun rights and the right not to be shot. But as long as we're divided, as long as we fetishize guns, and as long as there are people in power willing to sacrifice the safety of a 7-year-old on the altar of their own ambitions, this latest American tragedy will become nothing more than a footnote in a hellish story that seems to have no end.
Charita M. Goshay is a Canton Repository staff writer and member of the editorial board. Reach her at 330-580-8313 or charita.goshay@cantonrep.com. On Twitter: @cgoshayREP
This article originally appeared on The Repository: Charita Goshay: Youth football shooting is case of an American illness
