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When I was in high school back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it was not uncommon for kids to bring their hunting rifles, shotguns and .22s to school and keep them in their cars.

Many times, as soon as school was out, my friends and I would run across the street for a little plinking against the railroad embankment, which was no more than a few hundred yards from the school, and within plain sight of the main entrance.

I remember one time seeing a friend showing off his new Colt .45 to the shop teacher in the parking lot, right out where everyone could see.

That was in suburban Chicago, and nobody gave any of it a second thought.

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In those days, school shootings were unheard of.

President Obama and others are apoplectic about the presence of guns in our society, blaming them on the rather recent societal phenomenon of kids gunning down their classmates and teachers when they should be studying. Something has changed, and given that the guns have always been there, it is obvious that it is something else.

Maybe it is time to hold the media responsible for their coverage of these events.

When the perpetrators have their names and faces spread all over the newspapers and TVs, when their lives are publicly examined in detail and they are generally given more coverage than most celebrities receive, it’s easy to see how it might occur to more than one twisted little mind that this is a fast and easy way to achieve celebrity status.

Murders have always gotten major coverage: “If it bleeds, it leads.”

Carnage equals profits. But wouldn’t it be possible for the media to rub gore all over themselves without acting as PR agents for the crazy idiots who commit these crimes?

I’m not suggesting new laws restricting anyone’s First Amendment rights – good heavens, that would be tantamount to infringing upon our Second Amendment rights! Outrageous!

But how about the media take it upon themselves to act responsibly here?

If school shooters were identified only as “…a 16-year-old male student loser,” the attraction would decrease very rapidly.

Let’s issue a challenge to the media to give it a trial period of, say, five years. The worst that could happen would be a few journalists might go nuts.