The Punk Standard in Middle School - 1974

When I was in seventh grade, my class visited the 7-Up bottling plant near Philadelphia. I remember the last part of it very well.

After the tour ended we were sent to a small auditorium to wait for the school buses to arrive for the trip home. Someone in my class discovered a soda vending machine that worked without putting money in. Gold mine for the class! The teacher escorts were not around as we each helped ourselves to a soda.

Of course, our home room teacher found out and she was extremely upset. As we sat in the auditorium, she read us the riot act and demanded that we return each Seven Up. I still remember vividly the clinking of the bottles in a silent room, the stern looks of the plant tour-guide and our utter embarrassment as the 10 ounce sodas left our hands.

That was almost forty years ago. Since then, students probably don't go to beverage plants anymore because it might be seen as promoting sugar consumption. Metal detectors are installed at the doors to my school. Security officers, maybe armed, are employed there now.

Advocates of gun control remind me of that home room teacher. She was dedicated, passionate, concerned. So very eager to promote her view of "the right thing to do."

They'd like to see the world work as if they could scold a classroom full of 13 year olds in 1974. The madness of owning war weaponry, I know they believe deep down, is indisputable. More laws, more lecturing - this, they feel, is the answer.

They are right in one way. It is madness. But the guns won't leave the hands of the owners as if they were young teens caught stealing a 20 cent soda in 1974. The embarrassed looks aren't there. The expressions are angry now and the grips become tighter. Like it or not, they are clinging to a constitution - and to freedom.

More changes will be made to the campuses. It's difficult to think what our K-12 education system will look like in another forty years.

I'm completely convinced that crying "get rid of the guns" is easy and useless. Talk about toning down the violence in media and video-games is important.  Recognizing and controlling the monsters like Adam Lanza is ultimately the key to preventing more of what we saw in Newtown.