The extremes to which schools are going in attempts to prevent violence are truly beyond comprehension. But given the extremes of political correctness emasculating teachers, police and others you no longer dare touch a child or even speak to them in any manner that might be fodder for what most agree are the lowest of bottom feeders in America, the lawyers that pounce on anyone for anything. However, the degree of violence which children are exposed to on TV, in films and “games,” it is little wonder adults are genuinely concerned when “hit lists” are found in a school and drawings depicting violence against other children are taken seriously.

For those old enough to remember it most of us kids, the boys as least, while in elementary school during WWII were fond of drawing pictures of American planes, ships, and tanks destroying Japanese and German planes, ships, and tanks. What I do not recall is drawing pictures of people attacking and killing other people. It’s as though we were far more interested in drawing pictures of planes, ships, and tanks. And the better artists among us would use a ruler to draw lines of withering fire converging on enemy planes for example and having them explode. But we were involved in a world war and even our teachers encouraged such drawings.

The toy stores of the time had many “weapons of violence.” You could buy a toy ship that when hit just right by the fire of another would “explode” by a spring mechanism. Then you put it together again for another shot; real fun. You could buy spring-operated small toy machine guns that fired wood bullets or those where you wound up a spring to fire sparks by an abrasive wheel when you pulled the trigger. Those were fun. And, of course, there were the ubiquitous slingshots and other items of mayhem to keep children amused. Many of us found using a rubber band around our fingers could fire paperclips or bobby pins with precision. It wasn’t just the BB guns obviously intended to put out the eyes of children with which parents had to be concerned.

But to my knowledge, I am the only boy who ever fired a razor blade out of a slingshot. I will never know what demon planted the idea in my mind, but once there it compelled me to try this dangerous experiment in potentially bloodletting mayhem.

I was a grandmaster of the art at making slingshots, and the one I was to use was one of the best I had ever made; the beautifully carved handle and utilizing rubber from an innertube and a very fine leather pouch was ideal to my macabre purpose. I had used it with telling effect with a variety of projectiles on a number of targets and had great confidence in it and my ability to use it. But when it came to shooting a razor blade from it, this was completely uncharted territory.

Why I chose a double-edged razor blade I will never know. Why not a single-edged blade; a question as inexplicable as why I was going to do such an obviously insane thing to begin with? Going into the backyard I inserted the blade in the pouch of the slingshot, and taking aim at the back fence pulled back and prepared to let fly not knowing if the razor blade would slice my hand, fly back in my face or what? Taking a breath and ignoring the unsettling questions I let go. Zing! Thunk! The blade buried itself in the fence. It was only then with utterly dumbfounded amazement I realized what I had actually done! Here was a weapon of incredible potential for doing great harm to someone!

Folks, parents have every right to live in fear for their children. You just never know what may happen to them in today’s violent environment, and there are the monsters out there in human guise preying on children. That would seem to be enough for parents to worry about; however, as though the gods intended to punish people for having children you never know what is going on in their minds; you may be “blessed” with a child that is driven by the kind of inventive curiosity they might try firing a razor blade out of a slingshot.

But here is the “then and now” part of the story. Realizing the great potential of such a weapon for doing great bodily harm to someone, quite naturally I did not disclose my discovery to any of the adult guidance units surrounding me, but neither did I ever mention doing this to any of the other children I knew. What happened to the usually appropriate “bragging rights” most children enjoy among their peers? For some curious reason I have never been able to determine, my lips regarding this event remained sealed. Had the blade sliced my hand or boomeranged into my face and put out an eye that would have been difficult to hide. Then it would have been a simple matter of “What possessed you boy to do such a stupid thing!”

Ah, but the experiment had been an astounding success. In pondering the question over the years past I concluded the reason for my not mentioning this to other children was my fear one of them might actually use this weapon against another child. It wasn’t difficult for me to imagine the kind of guilt I would carry over such a thing. To my credit, I did have that kind of sensitive conscience. But I believe this was the result of the kind of people and society that encouraged such a conscience in me. Children no longer have that advantage.

It isn’t that I am unique among people with a sensitive conscience, but the experiment with my slingshot stayed with me; I didn’t share it. The more “successful” of lethal weapons like machine guns, assorted bombs including nuclear, well, they were not prevented by inventors with that kind of sensitive conscience. Once these ideas began to insinuate themselves into the minds of inventors and scientists and made “successful,” in no time at all everyone had to have them.

Unfortunately for our species and our planet, once inventors and scientists have opened the box there is no going back from what has been unleashed in the way of destruction, especially on a massive scale. Certainly nuclear energy held great promise for peaceful use, but it didn’t turn out that way. And children today are making hit lists and drawing pictures of killing other children; and the adults are wringing their hands exclaiming “What is to be done!”

The problem is historical, and nations invariably pay the price for not having leaders more concerned for children, the future of all nations, than they are with power and wealth. Such corrupt leaders always lead nations in the path of “What is to be done!” And there is little point in multiplying laws concerning parents and teachers about school violence for example when America lacks leaders genuinely concerned for the future of our children. But it won’t do for America to try to shoulder the problem in isolation from other nations that are cursed with the very kind of leadership that prevents cooperation in solving problems of truly global implications, nations that are cursed with the kind of leaders more concerned for wealth and power than their own children.