A very short while ago we were paralyzed with shock by the killings at Littleton and Taber. What was truly ghastly was the senselessness of them. Students just walked into school and willfully harmed people at random. "How could this happen here?" people were asking.

Reverend Dale Lang, father of the slain victim in Taber, said of W.R. Myers school, where his son was killed, "Evil entered here and it must be gotten rid of." It is good that Rev. Lang made that observation, but I certainly hope nobody thinks that that evil was a new arrival, or limited only to the young shooters at Taber and Littleton.

Headlines have said "Students vow to treat each other better so classmate's death won't be in vain." These slayings have been relatively expensive wake-up calls to the fact that the perfect little worlds of suburban schools are not quite as rosy as people have convinced themselves they are.

I offer a comparison:

Scenario 1) One day one or two young men enter a school and begin shooting people, lining people up to be shot and telling people "I'm doing this because you made fun of me."

Scenario 2) Every day teams of young men enter a school and verbally abuse one or two young men, calling them "fagot" and worse, refusing to leave them alone.

Certainly shooting someone is more serious than calling someone names, but that doesn't change the fact that the people who are asking why these murders were committed are suffering from a disgusting case of complacency. It's time to step outside the perverse little social structure of our schools and look at ourselves. Anyone who ever intentionally and senselessly verbally (and probably physically too) abused the shooters, and anyone who did not step in to stop the abuse is responsible for the shootings. It's not okay to stay uninvolved because "it's none of your business" or because the abusers will become angry with you and you won't be "cool". "Cool" starts to look just a little stupid when lives are being lost.

It is not "understandable" to sadistically set out to hurt people, ever. It is not "just a part of school life". It is wrong, and it causes very bad things. The shootings are in no way justifiable, but they are easier to understand than the motives of the cruel people who made the lives of the shooters literally miserable. That is what makes me ask "Why?". It was wrong, but the shooters killed because they were hurt. The people who hurt them did it because...why? There is Rev. Lang's "evil".

School staff who do nothing about the verbal and physical abuse occurring in their schools are condoning abuse, and are thus a part of the abuse. Abusers must be punished, so that there are no shooters to punish. I wonder how the Taber shooter will feel as he serves out his sentence while his own abusers are free of punishment. Maybe he'll decide that since no one else will punish them, it's up to him. Besides, whether he acts or not, he's going to be punished, either for shooting people or for being a geek, right?

It's pathetic that people will not question the daily vicious attacks happening in schools until guns become involved. Schools around here continue to say "it won't happen here". That's the attitude that makes it happen. School staff have an obligation to protect victims of abuse in their schools. It's revolting to imagine teachers turning a blind eye as "popular" students sickly enjoy hurting their schoolmates.

This is not about gun control or the availability of counseling. Those are merely fighting the symptoms when we need to eliminate the cause: cruelty. To those who purposefully, intentionally, and willfully hurt someone else, and to anyone has allowed it to happen: you are responsible for the shootings. They were your fault.