Official gives students strong warning on gun crimes
By MICHAEL ERB, merb@newsandsentinel.com
POSTED: January 30, 2008
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Tanya White-Woods, West Virginia youth coordinator for the federal Hard Time for Gun Crime program, spoke to the students, giving them real-world stories of how gun crime and the law have affected the lives of youths in West Virginia.
“The law says it doesn’t matter if you are a juvenile. It doesn’t matter if you are not 18,” she said. “If you are part of a gun crime, you go to prison, period. No pardon. A minimum of five years.”
Students watched an 8-minute video produced by students from Capitol High School in Charleston. The video told the story of a group of students who come up with a plan to get money from another student, but end up going to prison after the botched robbery ends with the victim being shot.
White-Woods also shared the stories of several Charleston youths, most only a year or two older than the assembled Vandy students, who were caught up in gun crimes either themselves or with friends and as a result are now serving terms in prison.
“None of them woke up that morning planning to commit a crime. None of them woke up planning to kill someone,” she said. “They were good kids. They made a mistake. But with a gun, you can’t say you’re sorry. You can’t take it back.”
The incidents of youthful offenders being involved in gun crimes is rising, a fact White-Woods partly attributed to today’s culture and the influence of media and peer pressure. More youth believe guns are cool and don’t think of the consequences of their actions, she said.
“That doesn’t make any sense to me, that you would risk your life just to be cool like that,” she said.
White-Woods asked students to raise their hands if they had ever held a handgun, with the majority of students indicating they had. More than two-dozen of the assembled students raised their hands when asked if they had held a gun without an adult present.
“Maybe next time you’ll think about it twice when you’re with a person who has a gun,” she said.
White-Woods also spoke to students at Hamilton Junior High School on Tuesday afternoon, and travels around 23 counties in the state spreading the message, and warning, to West Virginia youths.
Hard Time for Gun Crime is a federally funded initiative of Project Safe Neighborhoods to help fight the illegal use and possession of guns. For more information, visit www.HardTimeforGunCrime.org.
