Gun Control From An Eight Year Old Perspective
Kids say the darndest things. Art Linkletter knew it, Bill Cosby knew it, and now we have an eight-year-old whose understanding on the subject rivals some people multiple times his age. His name is Coleman Glasser, and he wrote an essay on gun control, saying that we should not legalize assault rifles. This kid is one smart cookie.
The school assignment was to write a persuasive piece based on the prompt “If I could change one thing in the world…”
David Glasser, Coleman’s father, heard the piece for the first time at a school “publishing party,” where the students each had a chance to read their work. He emailed Huffington Post with the following email:
“One [child] wrote about getting rid of pollution, one about getting rid of hamburgers, Coleman’s was about assault weapons. I was surprised (and proud I must admit) when he read it. I had no idea.”
David Glasser noted that his son had been reluctant to go to school on the Monday after the shootings because (in his words) he was “afraid some crazy person [was] going to come in to the school and shoot us.” He added:
“We had spoken with our children about the Sandy Hook shootings at the dinner table, or if it came up on the news, but not extensively and I never even thought of asking him to write about it.”
The following from Lots of Essays is an excerpt from Coleman’s work:
“The sale of assault rifles should not be legalized for a number of common sense reasons. Although most of the reasons for not legalizing assault weapons have more to do with common sense than statistics, they are nonetheless legitimate reasons for curtailing (to any extent) the random violence that has permeated the core of modern life in America. If statistics show that only a small percentage of crimes are attributable to assault-style weapons, real life incidents of violence demonstrate the absolute folly of allowing such military-style weapons to be bought and sold in America today.”
It’s simply amazing what kids can tell us when we give them the chance.
