"School Shooter pens Pro-gun Law letter, says he owes his life to 'Hero' Educator who stopped 2004 attack"
The article, stated above, is about a past shooter (Jon Romano) from an incident in 2004 who writes a letter to the person who stopped him from harming his classmates (Assistant Principal John Sawchuk) a decade later. It focuses on how Jon communicates to his ‘hero’ on a personal level and advocating for the Florida victims who are fighting for gun control. Just as the title suggested, a past shooter writes a letter to his ‘hero’ talking about his own personal feelings towards his own actions. He also mentions a lot of his opinions of school shootings happening now, a decade from a shooting he attempted before. Jon Romano reflects on his own behavior back then and thanks Sawchuk for stopping him while the latter retells of the event through his own eyes. Some of the details being the personal experience of that event and some being his response to Romano’s letter. While John focused mainly on the events of the 2004 shooting in the article, the experience, fear, and the events are still relevant now.
Jon Romano’s attempted school shooting took place back in 2004 in Columbia High School in East Greenbush, New York. While the article covering his letter is from a decade later (present time), he is spending his 20-year sentence at a New York state prison in Coxsackie. He was charged with attempted murder and reckless endangerment. It’s a bit hard to understand why people do things like school shootings. There are many reasons for someone to break, like mental disorders, stress, and/or trauma from their environment. For Romano, it seemed like he was definitely an outsider. It was stated by law enforcement officials that he had a variety of mental illnesses, a short period of his school life was being homeschooled before returning to Columbia High School, he also lost all of his friends in that period of time. It was also stated that there was proof that Romano’s mother bought the firearm used in the attempted shooting, which could have been an impulsive item in Romano’s actions. I came to this bit of conclusion that Romano was definitely under some influence of outside examples, such as the presence of a weapon, similar events happening nearby, and a muddled judgement as an “outsider”. It’s hard to empathize with his behavior, but I believe that the topic of school shootings and the people behind them are so very complicated. There are many ways to help this issue, if we can’t fix it, like making gun control more strict, having more responsibilities of gun ownership, promoting mental health above school, etc. Though some ideas are very far fetched, in the society we live in now, I just hope that we can act upon them before it’s too late. For example, Romano was able to reflect on himself with time and become pro-law on gun control. Change is possible, but we need to work and make time for it. (I will comment on Nia's and Mariah's blog posts)
2 Comments
Nia Asbill
3/9/2018 09:16:28 am
Shooters and gun control are a complicated topic, but this example brings up some good points. The multiple factors that go into it, or how to watch for these variables. I agree that change is a possibility, it just requires time and effort.
Reply
Kaycee S
3/11/2018 12:42:23 pm
Romano reflecting on his past shows him gaining a new sense of empathy for possible shooting victims. Like you said, change takes time, and Romano is working towards it. Depending on how much he actually changes, do you think that he should ever be forgiven?
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Author... Archives
June 2018
Categories |