Education secretary: Guns not to blame in shootings
March 11, 2001
Web posted at: 6:34 PM EST (2334 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Students’ “alienation and rage” is the biggest factor in school shootings, Education Secretary Rod Paige said Sunday, and addressing that problem, rather than changing gun laws, should be the country’s priority.

Last week, students were shot in schools in California and Pennsylvania, including the suburban San Diego high school where two students were killed and 13 other people wounded.

Paige said guns cannot take blame because there have been reports of students plotting violence with bombs and other devices. Regardless, he said, “We need to look to the cause of the situation.”

“Probably the biggest problem we have is the amount of alienation and rage in our young people,” Paige said on CBS’ “Face The Nation.”

“We think just focusing on guns is much too narrow, it’s beyond guns. The guns may be the instrument of the violence, but they’re not the cause of the violence,” Paige said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

Paige recommended more after-school programs and parental involvement, and character education.

He said in President Bush’s administration, religious-based organizations will get a chance to reach more children in after-school programs.

Paige, the former Houston schools chief, also said Bush wants to expand character education. Congress created a pilot program for that purpose in 1994.

Bush told Congress last month that he wanted to triple funds for character education “to teach our children not only reading and writing, but right from wrong.”

“Character education offers an opportunity to teach kids things like empathy, compassion, tolerance — all values that we all know are wonderful,” Paige said on CBS.

After the Santana High School shootings on March 5, Paige issued a statement urging “every parent and every student to listen closely to children who express concern, anger or fear concerning their school, their teachers and their classmates.”

Charles Andrew Williams, 15, a freshman, surrendered after allegedly firing more than 30 shots in and around a boy’s bathroom. He is being held on murder and other charges stemming from the shooting.

Also last week, an eighth-grade Pennsylvania girl was accused of shooting one of her classmates in the shoulder in a school cafeteria.

Attorney General John Ashcroft said there have been many programs to keep guns out of schools but they “don’t seem to be capable of excluding the potential for violence.”

“I think we have to understand that students can help, parents can help, and our culture probably can help by not so insistently suggesting … that violence is the way to resolve disputes,” Ashcroft said on ABC’s “This Week.”