A Tucson Tragedy: Jared Loughner

Over the last week I've been having a lot of thoughts about Jared Loughner, as all of America has I'm sure. Everyone tries to analyze these tragedies, looking for one universal truth to a question with so many different answers. Why?

This story has struck a chord with me, because at 22 years of age, and with a successful career ongoing in the Marine Corps, my life path is a world away from Jared's. It wasn't always so, however. I come from a home that was always broken but not split until my adulthood, had a close friend killed in a car accident in 2001, and I lost one of my closest cousins when he tragically took his own life in 2005. When it happened, all the warning signs that I had missed came to me, and such is the same that has happened with Jared Loughner.

We've heard about his strange outbursts in classrooms, at times severe enough to have the police called. Even in high school, he was involved with the police for showing up to school intoxicated. His strange ramblings and videos have come pouring out on youtube.

The next point I'm going to make, is touchy at best, and it is with reservations that I type this.

This could have easily of been prevented.

Seriously, a high school student shows up to school drunk off his father's vodka, complaining that he hates his father, and doesn't want to go home. Police are repeatedly called to escort Jared off campus due to his nonsensical outbursts and ramblings. Where was the intervention? We trust schools enough to educate the future of America, but we do not empower them to intervene in personal matters of students. The fact is, for 9 months out of the year, the teacher will see our children far, far more often than parents do. It is the teachers and student's peer group at the school that will directly influence his mental health and state of mind. Is it the fellow students, their minds still developing themselves that should watch for warning signs and problem students? No. It is the teachers, the same ones protected by powerful unions and tenure. The ones we entrust with our most precious assets, the future of America. These teachers over the course of a few years will look at thousands of children, and I would hope, can easily tell the difference between normal disruptive behavior like being occasionally late to class, talking too often, kissing in the hallways, and perhaps the more obviously abnormal behavior like showing up to school stumbling drunk, crying and irate at the thought of going home to his father.

Where are the stories about all the counseling he must of received? Surely someone with a documented history of mental illness wouldn't be allowed to purchase a weupon? Wait, thats right, he doesn't have a documented history, because nobody was willing to bring up the fact that his behavior was not normal. People would sit close to the exits of classrooms, have their fingers on the silent alarm button in the bank, and eventually his repeated outbursts led his college to ban him from the campus, but NOBODY took it upon themselves to do anything about it, to bring attention to his behavior at a higher level. As long as it wasn't their problem, and it didn't effect them, they didn't want to interfere in someone else's life.

So now we sit, turning on the news to see that mug shot. That cold, staring, smiling picture of disturbed, deranged, Jared Loughner.