Rob Fiorello, a youth program coordinator for PEI Kids, co-chairman of the Mercer County Gang Task Force and a member of TPPB, wrote an opinion piece for the Trenton Times. The piece can be found on the Trenton Times website by clicking here.

Opinion: Today’s children are fascinated by guns, exposed to violence

By Rob Fiorello

For the past 18 years, I’ve worked with Mercer County teenagers and served as co-chairman of the Mercer County Gang Task Force from 2007 to the present.

During this time, 34 young men I have known, most of them former students, have been murdered by gunfire in the City of Trenton. In our back yard — before the tragedy of Newtown, Conn. Right here, in our capital city.

I was a pall bearer for a young man who was killed at age 18. He was more of a son to me than a student — and it changed my entire perspective on violence. Any good teacher is prepared to educate those in his or her charge in a variety of subjects and skills. How to properly line up beside a casket is not supposed to be part of the teacher/student experience.

I have embraced in condolence the mothers of many of my slain former students. Their anguished cries linger with me years later. I have also witnessed something I find terribly disturbing: acceptance. Acceptance of the violence, acceptance of guns and acceptance of death come much too soon.

Whether positive or negative, attitudes and beliefs permeate the consciousness of the children with whom we interact. If we outwardly “expect” to lose them, we will continue to do just that. The ever-present culture of violence and loss in which I see my students immersed daily, and the struggle to find ways to escape that, come into direct conflict with guns, gun laws and what I believe is the continued distortion of the Second Amendment. I owe it to the memories of all the young people I have worked with to share a few of my firsthand observations.

Today’s children are fascinated by guns. To be fair, many of my generation were, too. The notable difference is the disparity in levels of exposure to violence. I believe today’s video games, such as “Grand Theft Auto” and the “Call of Duty” series, parental permissiveness in allowing children to see violent movies, and the amount of violent content and imagery so easily available online, lead to an unreal perspective on violence and the finality of death. I understand parents cannot keep youth in a bubble, but isn’t it their job to protect their children from the harsh realities of the world until they are prepared to understand and cope with those realities? Parental vigilance and determination are still the best deterrents we can employ to keep kids as safe as possible.

As we all know, there is now a great deal of political attention and legislative scrutiny brought to bear on assault weapons and guns in general, and for good reason. From my perspective, there are no credible, reasonable civilian applications for assault weapons. None. To cite the Second Amendment as a basis for allowing civilians to own these types of arms is a distortion of the spirit and intent of that amendment. Our Founding Fathers, while visionaries in many regards, could never have planned for a world so densely populated or imagined today’s incredible firearms technology, especially as they were loading their single-shot muskets.

I am filled with regret for the society we have cultivated, one in which some think they need weapons of war to feel “safe.” It is equally disturbing to me that some gun owners will spend a great deal of money on the gun itself, and a pittance on the means to properly secure it. Gun storage technology has progressed immensely, yet so many lives are senselessly lost due to unsecured arms. If gun owners insist on having guns, I believe they have a moral obligation to secure them safely.

Eight years ago, I was telling my class about how my father used to tear apart my room and my brother’s room. In mine, he was looking for cookies. In my brother’s, he was looking for something besides cookies. Several of my students laughed at that. Others said that stuff like that happened “back in the day,” and we laughed as they speculated what was really in my brother’s room. One young man appeared angry at the notion of such treatment from a parent, so I asked him if his mom ever went through his room.

The young man replied, “My mother knows better than to go through my [stuff].” Just six months later, that same 16-year-old took a pistol he had hidden in his bedroom and used it to end the life of a 14-year-old boy I also knew, whom he perceived had wronged him in some way.

I have seen how indifference, inattention and apathy can kill. But it is not too late. We must pay attention to what our children see and with whom they associate and never be afraid to ask tough questions. If a parent isn’t entitled to ask, who, then, truly is?