If Kayla Rolland's 6-year-old assailant had used a knife, a hammer or a rope to kill her, it would have hardly made a ripple in the media ocean. Unfortunately, her 6-year-old assailant and classmate found a firearm hidden under the pillow of his uncle's crack house.

So now little Kayla is now yet another "victim" of "handgun violence." Never the criminal misuse of a firearm. Curious how "The Media" always make it appear as if the handgun acted of its own volition, as if it just carried itself to the school, pointed itself and went off. Those terrible, violent handguns -- one never knows when they will strike next!

Lost in the grief of this senseless tragedy is the curious treatment of the 6-year-old shooter. He, too, is described as another "victim." Certainly, in the eyes of The Media, he could in no way be responsible for his actions. Even though he hid the gun after he shot Kayla and blamed another classmate for the shooting.

Earlier in the week, he had stabbed another child with a pencil, was described as a "bully" by his fellow students and hated all his classmates. But no, he could not be responsible at all. Nor were his parents (mom missing, dad in jail on parole violations) or guardian (his 19 year old crack-dealing nephew who had received the stolen gun as barter for drugs) nor the police who had been called on more than 30 occasions, according to a neighbor interviewed on National Public Radio about the night and day drug activity, nor the child welfare people, who knew where he lived.

None of those people--not the 6-year-old shooter, the teacher, the parents, the guardian, the police, the state welfare workers -- none of those people were responsible for the murder of this child. For according to the pronouncements of all the major media, and The President of the United States, it was definitely the fault of the firearm. Even the little hate-filled shooter was merely another "victim" of the "gun culture."

So for the rest of the week, that upright paragon of virtue and veracity, Bill Clinton, was content to quote the figures supplied to him by HandGun Control Inc., stating repeatedly that "...thirteen children are killed every day by gunfire." That's amounts to 4745 per year--quite an impressive figure! Conveniently, HCI Inc. includes 18 and 19 year old "children" in its statistics, many of whom are involved in the drug trade and have no compunction about using a stolen firearm to carve out territory or carve up competitors.

HCI's coy little stratagem does tend to distort the impartial numbers, supplied by the FBI's Bureau of Uniform Crime Statistics, which tell another story: for children under the age of 16, (when driving a car begins and childhood really ends), 897 were killed by gunfire in 1998, the last year when total figures are known, and the lowest figure in 30 years. In fact, more children die falling down stairs, falling off bicycles and skateboards, and accidental drownings, (including 5 gallon buckets, swimming pools and bath tubs) than die accidentally through firearms. Although I am sure there are those who would wish it otherwise, firearms are the very lowest causative factor in preventable, fatal childhood accidents.

As far as school shooting deaths involving real children, not young adults, the totals by gunfire from 1993 through the first half of 1999 total 82, according to the National School Safety Center, while the number of children killed by automobile airbags during that same time frame is 99, with 21 other cases "pending," according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Perhaps we should register airbags?

Speaking of "air bags," Clinton's mantra that "...if only that gun had a trigger lock, that little girl would be alive today..." borders on the absurd. In fact, nothing Clinton has proposed, including closing the so-called "gun show" loophole, firearms licenses, gun registration or trigger lock requirements would have prevented this tragedy, unless one is really so naive as to think that the 19 year old "uncle" who dealt drugs in that crack house would have suddenly exercised the presence of mind to run out and buy a trigger lock so that the stolen weapon could not be operated by his little 6 year old nephew.

The lament about the "easy availability" of firearms also flies in the face of reality. Never in our history have firearms been so difficult for the average person to legally obtain. But simple minds will always seek simple solutions. So it is no surprise that the media would blame "The Gun" as the causative agent, rather than admitting that a firearm, like a knife, a hammer, or a match, is nothing more than a tool which can be used for good or evil, depending upon the volition of its operator.

Dismiss the fact that this child's favorite movie and TV shows were filled with violence. Dismiss any possibility that television, movies and video games, which over the past 15 years have turned increasingly violent and blood-thirsty, could possibly have any effect on him or on our society. Ignore the horrendous increase in childhood and teen-age violence even in "gun free" countries the media so admire, where the only variable has been the introduction of increasingly violent media.

Dismiss the psychotropic drugging of an entire new generation of children and teen-agers for "behavioral" problems. Let's forget the irony of living in a country which proclaims "zero tolerance" for drugs, yet eagerly "medicates" children as young as two with Luvox, Zoloft, Ritalin, Paxil and Prozac. Ignore that these drugs, in a significant minority of children, provoke violent, even murderous behavioral changes. Above all, ignore that these drugs were prescribed to and used by the vast majority of teen-aged school "shooters" over the past ten years. Just dismiss it, suppress it, ignore it.

But do remember that in the 50's and early 60's , teen-agers could buy rifles at hardware stores and order surplus bazookas out of comic books. They could walk down the street with their rifle to participate in school shooting sports events and no one would think twice, or look twice, or call the police. Even when guns were easily and readily available to that generation, for some reason there were no teen gun atrocities plastered across the nations' newspapers almost nightly.

So what has changed? Have the guns changed? No. Has access to "the guns" changed? Yes. It is now harder than ever to legally obtain a firearm, and for teenagers, virtually impossible. Has our society changed, our values, our culture, our ethics, our morality? No, that couldn't be it. It must be "The Guns!"

How much longer the mainstream media will callously pose such simple solutions to complex social problems? How much longer will they continue to blame a physical object for the behavior of those who control its use? How much longer will they proffer solutions that infringe, violate and abrogate the fundamental, constitutional rights of adult citizens of the United States? How much longer will they address the effect while ignoring the cause because it does not happen to be, for the transitory moment, politically correct?

Let me posit a few larger questions to ponder. How much longer will The Media attempt to foist emotion-laden guilt trips upon the general public, and put forth arguments even a first year rhetoric student could skewer with abandon? In the quest to further their "vision" of a better "gun-free" world, do they, and Bill Clinton, ever tire of dancing upon the graves of these murdered children in order to push their "gun control" agenda?

Do ethics, values, motivation, individual responsibility, not to mention constitutional principles ever impede their march towards the Valhalla of the progressive promised land where a disarmed civilian population is forever at the mercy of the criminals both in and out of government, the only people who will always have access to firearms?

Allow me to differ with that vision.

It is not "the guns" -- it is a cultural mind-set devoid of spiritual values, created and perpetuated by Hollywood and the liberal media elite which has created this chasm, this empty hole, in the souls of our youth. It is the cesspool of mindless violence and gutter values pushed by Empty-V. And it is now, more than ever, a symptom of our times.

No, the "problem" is not "the guns" the gutless media would have you believe. It is the spawn of their neglect, and the end-result of their capitulation to feeling and sensation over logic and reason. It is the child of their own creation, the manifestation of their poverty of values.

Like a fish rotting from the head down, it is the reflection of the Evil in the Heart that emanates from the empty suit in our highest office and poisons our land and our people with its effluent.