If the tragedy at Columbine some years ago wasn’t’ enough, now we hear on the evening news about another young person who wanted to bomb his school and kill classmates.

What is happening in the minds of our young people that they methodically come up with plans to kill and destroy? This young man is from the Concord, North Carolina area and this brings the incident really close to home. It’s amazing how the typical attackers are often middle class, intelligent, loners within their schools and everyone suspects them of something, but does little to investigate the problem. The profiles are always similar. They feel they are being picked on. They are different. They even dress

a little different and then there are the so-called weird things that every other student notices about the kids.

There has to be some warning signs somewhere. Where were the parents when a child can assemble a bomb or purchase bomb materials?

In this particular case, the young man had aerial photographs of the school and had drawn plans which outlined the school building. Someone should have been paying more attention you think. The amount of time our young people have to themselves and what they could be doing is starting to frighten me.

If in fact the parent

had paid a little bit more attention to their child, maybe

they would have seen this before it got to this point. Maybe they could have addressed what seriously seems like a problem with this young man. Luckily in the Concord incident, no one was hurt and the accuser will now have to stand trail for this action.

We can all remember Columbine and the lives lost there. The entire nation mourned with the families who lost their children to two young men who were just like this kid from Concord. The lost of those young people was a reality check for us all and let us know that no one is safe anywhere. When you send your children off to school you don’t expect for their lives to be taken by one of their classmates.

In the most recent past, we’ve seen this again and again. No matter how safe you think you are, there has been incidences like the tragic events of Sept. 11th and the Maryland/DC snipers that brings it all back home again. These events let us know just how dangerous it really is out there and that you don’t have to be in the wrong place. These lives were lost while people were doing everyday task.

We need to apply ourselves just a little more to coming up with solutions to help our young people. There’s something going on with these young folk and its more than peer pressure and self-esteem issues. There has to some sort of mental incapacities in these people. The calculated method in which these crimes are being considered and committed assure me that something is definitely not right.

I’m not blaming anyone in particular, but someone has to take responsibility for what’s happening. Yes, this young man is responsible for his actions but there has to be others who either assisted or failed to pay attention to what was happening around them.

What’s happening around the nation could very easily happen here as well. We are not immune from troubled youth and adults who only want to destroy lives. It’s time to sit back and do some real soul searching here because your life could be wiped away with the blinking of an eye.