Bud Harris - Students Under Siege: The Real Reasons behind Americas Ongoing Mass Shootings and How to Stop Them

Students Under Siege

ALSO BY BUD HARRIS, PHD:

Sacred Selfishness: A Guide to Living a Life of Substance

Radical Hope and the Healing Power of Illness

Aging Strong: The Extraordinary Gift of a Longer Life

Becoming Whole: A Jungian Guide to Individuation

The Search for Self and the Search for God

Cracking Open: A Memoir of Struggling, Passages, and Transformations

The Father Quest: Rediscovering an Elemental Force

Resurrecting the Unicorn: Masculinity in the 21st Century

The Fire and the Rose: The Wedding of Spirituality and Sexuality

Knowing the Questions, Living the Answers: A Jungian Guide through
the Paradoxes of Peace, Conflict, and Love that Mark a Lifetime

America Now: Facing Fear and Division to Reclaim
the Heart of Our Democracy

COAUTHORED WITH MASSIMILLA HARRIS, PHD:

Into the Heart of the Feminine: Facing the Death Mother
Archetype to Reclaim Love, Strength, and Vitality

Like Gold through Fire: Understanding the Transforming Power of Suffering

The Art of Love: The Craft of Relationship: A Practical Guide
for Creating the Loving Relationships We Want

Students Under Siege

The Real Reasons behind Americas Ongoing Mass Shootings and How to Stop Them

Bud Harris, PhD

daphne publications asheville, north carolina

STUDENTS UNDER SIEGE: THE REAL REASONS BEHIND AMERICAS ONGOING MASS SHOOTINGS AND HOW TO STOP THEM

COPYRIGHT 2018 BY BUD HARRIS, PH.D.

Copyright 2018 Students under siege: the real reasons behind Americas ongoing mass shootings and how to stop them by Bud Harris.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Daphne Publications, 6 Cambridge Road, Asheville, North Carolina 28804

DAPHNE PUBLICATIONS, AN IMPRINT OF SPES, INC.

Harris, Clifton T. Bud

Students under siege: the real reasons behind Americas ongoing mass shootings and how to stop them / Bud Harris

ISBN 978-0-578-43050-8 Non-Fiction

1. Violence in Society2. Social Psychology

Cover Design: Courtney Tiberio

Interior Design: Susan L. Yost

From the brutal loss of our children and loved ones, let us show we will derive not confusion, more fear and weakness, but strengththe strength to face our reality and the courage to prove to our children we value them. Let the torment of these terrible events bind us together in a new fellowshipmaking us one people beginning a new chapter in our history.

CONTENTS

Introduction

This short work is a challenge to face the reality behind our shock and heartbreak, to understand the core of what is happening in our culture, and how to take a major step forward together in caring for each other.

Every child has the right to be safe in school. School murders, church murders, and other mass murders are one of the most important challenges facing us today. Together we will explore how our common pain should lead to a determined effort to understand the very core of these heartbreaking events, to come to a common purpose and then take action. We will explore the factors and failures that have manifested in the anxious desire to have military grade weapons on a massive scale.

Then this work will journey deep into the human, social, and psychological dimensions of how a mass murderer is formed.

I will do my best to help us trace the painful influences and failures that have brought us to this place of danger and heartbreak. Then as I write I will offer us the opportunity to accept the hard realities and challenges necessary to restructure our cultures value system into one where we care for each other and prove to our children we value them.

Because I have felt these outrages very personally and have been so inspired by the active response of the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, I am writing this small book as a letter to them. Throughout my writing, the lingering theme in the background is Do we have the courage to face our failures and prove we value our children and each other?

Dear Students,

There are no words to express our sense of shock and horror at the mass murders of your classmates. There are no words sad enough to express our sense of loss. These terrible events have thrust upon us our duty as parents, grandparents, and citizens of the United States to do away with the fear, the indifference, and the dehumanization that is infecting our society and show that we are capable of decisive action. There must be no words strong enough to express our determination to continue the forward thrust of the crusade you students have started.

The world is under fire, and we have been hiding under the bed.

Getting Out from Under the Bed

I thought I had said all I have to say about this topic after the shootings, the murders, in the church in Charleston, South Carolina. I thought I had said all I have to say in the blog I wrote at the time. But I was wrong. Since then we have had a presidential election, the world has changed, and we adults need to quit hiding under the bed. My inner muse who connects me with the voice of my soul compelled me to write another book, America Now: Facing Fear and Division to Reclaim the Heart of Our Democracy . During that process I realized I have a lot more to say about these types of murdersa lot moreand, as hard as it is for me to think about them, I have to get out from under the bed and say what I think.

There is no question about the fire that moves me now, which is the response of you students to seeing your friends murdered. In pain and rage you have refused to be victims and have become warriors and crusaders. You are showing us the best of our American tradition, which is the determination to stand up to any challenge no matter how daunting it is.

I am humbled as I have watched and listened to you. You have caused me to realize I must look in the mirror, into my own soul, and into my responsibility as an elder and a citizen in the history of these events. I know all too well that being under the bed, ignoring or denying the evil around me, is in fact a way of being engaged in it.

So I must say with deep regret that my generation has failed you. I have failed you. The generations we parented have failed you. We have failed to recognize the real problems behind these continuing murders.

Our democracy has failed you. Our democracy has become weak because of our, the older generations, shallow approach to it and the large number of people who have given up on it. You saw the results of this failure by the lack of what happened when you encountered your state legislature and after you visited the president.

The first step in being able to learn from and grow beyond our failures is to recognize them, accept them, and confront them. Unless we have the humility and the courage to carry out this encounter, we will discover that our failures will repeat themselves continually. I believe that we can face our failures and awaken our hearts.

****

Too many people, like me, have thought it is enough to work hard, try to provide for our families, contribute to charities, and vote. Because of our blindness we have failed to see the intensity of the suffering around us that is dehumanizing so many of usthat is creating an atmosphere of stress, anxiety, fear, and violence. Focusing our lives too narrowly has kept us from facing the real problems in our society and from doing the right things to relieve them. Now it is time for us to step up to the plate with the determination to reform our government into the values it was created for: the sacredness of every person and liberty, equality, and opportunity for everyone. We cant afford to hate each other. We cant afford to elect officials who foster divisiveness, pander to our weaknesses, and inflame our fears and anger. We must be determined to assure our future generations that our diversities will be glued together by our active citizenship.