Oh, to recognize those 'warning signs'

Ah, there it is, the inevitable day-after-the-day-after-the-day-after headline in Saturday's local paper: "Warning signs likely missed prior to shooting, say professionals."

Well, excuse my language, but no shit.

I'm talking about the crazy shooting at an Omaha area high school last week, by the way, not the crazy shooting in Arizona Saturday. Sometimes, it's tough to keep crazy shootings straight in this country. I know, I know: Guns don't kill people, but they certainly do make it efficient, don't they?

Don't get me wrong: I'm not anti-gun. However, I am vehemently anti-leaving guns and ammo where they can be found by kids, whether it's a 10-year-old who wants to show off to a friend or a 17-year-old driven temporarily stupid and unhinged by adrenaline, hormones and a righteous indignation at being wronged by the world who, if he hadn't known exactly where to find a gun, might have satisfied his rage by keying the principal's car or throwing a brick through the school's window.

Of course, few of us needed to hear the "professionals" weigh in to figure some "warning signs" likely were missed in the life of high school senior Robert Butler Jr., who shot his school's principal and assistant principal, killing the latter, before turning the gun on himself. By all accounts so far, though, those signs weren't very obvious. In fact, they seem to have been almost invisible, and for parents who live with a healthy dose of "there but for the grace of God go I" attitude, that's pretty damn terrifying. That terror can apply whether worrying about one's own increasingly distant, lately-seeming-edgier teen, or wondering about how many kids in your child's school might be unnoticed powderkegs, waiting for the slightest spark.

Most parents know the cliches of what we're supposed to watch for: A sudden predilection for black clothing not tied to an newfound obsession with Johnny Cash. Finding a list of names of classmates titled "hit list" in your child's backpack, or a pile of small, dead, tortured animals in the backyard. Or noticing that junior sure seems interested lately in accelerants and igniting devices.

But beyond that, well ....

If only teenagers were equipped with a color-coded warning system, like the one used by the Department of Homeland Security in the early days of the war on terror. Yellow for general sullenness, green for dismissive contempt, orange for outright hostility and red for homicidal rage.

But teenagers are often a mystery. Even the good ones. When kids are young, they wear their hearts on their sleeves, for better or worse. It's pretty easy to figure out a 5-year-old's state of mind. As kids get older, they live more of their lives inside their heads. To use an iceberg analogy, a 5-year-old is all exposed ice; the teenager is barely seen above the surface, with huge expanses of ice underwater, amid dark, cold, fiercely eddying waters.

I don't mean to be melodramatic. I have four children, three of whom are now young adults. They all turned out to be decent, well-adjusted, kind people who are well on their way to being productive members of society. But I confess there were huge periods of time during their high school years when I had almost no idea what was really going on in their heads. I thought they were doing OK, and of course they told me so when I asked, but I knew I wasn't getting the whole story. And occasional clues poked through to confirm that suspicion. My wife and I trusted that if anything truly went awry, we would see it, or they would come to us, because we're good parents and they're good kids. But we couldn't know that for certain.

So, my wife and I worried our oldest three through their teenage years, and we've just begun worrying our youngest through. Because, to paraphrase Tigger, worrying's what parents do best.

Of course, almost everyone comes through the teen years just fine, and many of us manage to transform whatever trauma, sorrow, indignity or humiliation we endured into a certain positive energy and compassion. If nothing else, it prepares those of us who go on to become parents to nurture our own children through the experience.

But it sure doesn't help us understand what Robert Butler Jr. did, or assure us that we'd recognize such impending behavior -- those "warning signs," as the professionals and media note -- in the teenagers we know, teach or love.

(I already had started writing this when I discovered I had an odd personal tie to the horrible events at Millard South High School: My mom's first cousin was the unnamed school nurse who was hit by bullet fragments. She's fine, physically anyway, but one can't help wondering whether school nurses of the future will be required to be trained in treating gunshot trauma.)