With today's instantaneous forms of communication, nothing slips from our gaze or from our imagination. It would seem that sensationalism by the news media sometimes takes the upper hand and skews people's thinking about certain events that have exploded upon the scene in the past few years.

One such event is kids killing other kids at school. Many people have expressed concern that now kids can't even feel safe at school.

Lest we or our kids stress ourselves over unsafe schools and zero-tolerance policies, here are a few statistics that might put things into a more focused perspective.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, the National Safety Council and the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, each year, approximately 15 children die from accidents involving riding lawn mowers.

20 die from playground-related injuries.

35 die from four-wheeler accidents.

224 die from bicycle accidents.

1,580 die from various accidents in the home. House fires are the leading cause.

And more than 7,000 die as a result of automobile accidents, the leading cause of death for children.

Why aren't these Page One headlines? To quote Bob Dole, ``Where is the outrage?''

What are we doing about these preventable tragedies? What are the news media doing about it? Why aren't they hammering us with these statistics every day?

Well, perhaps they're just not news anymore.

Could it be that shootings at schools have been happening for many years before Columbine but just weren't brought to our attention because there weren't a large number of kids killed at one place and time? Quantity makes it big-time news, just as a plane crash with more than a handful of people makes it big-time news.

The apparent lack of concern regarding the number of deaths due to auto accidents every year has gradually crept into society and worries me.

Don't mistake what I say. Any unnatural death is a tragedy and shouldn't be taken lightly, but I feel our priorities of concern have gotten somewhat bent over the past 20 years or so.

So when the neighborhood kid points a finger at you and yells, ``Bang!'' don't be too quick to worry about safety. He may just innocently be playing cops and robbers, as we did when we were kids.

Tom Thompson
Tallmadge