But first I just have to say...more...about gun violence (which is out of control in this country, specifically, though not exclusively)...and about school shootings in particular.
I hate that "school shootings" is even a term. But whether I like it or not, it is a cultural practice that if we have not embraced as a nation, we have accepted (see: JD Vance's remarks about school shootings being a "fact of life"). I think it's high time we—as a nation—push back against this cultural practice.
We need to explore its roots and weed it out because trimming it down (by installing locks and alarms and posting armed sentinels at the constantly-locked doors) will do nothing (or at least very little) to end the violence. The root of the cause is elsewhere and that's what we need to get at.
“If these psychos are going to go after our kids we’ve got to be prepared for it,” Vance said at a rally in Phoenix. “We don’t have to like the reality that we live in, but it is the reality we live in. We’ve got to deal with it.”
This wasn't a psycho getting into the school.
It was a boy.
A child.
A student.
Just like—and yet now distinctly different from—every other child at the school. And the school had locks on the classroom doors. And the school had armed officers in the building. And the school had...
We've spent the past 25 years "living with this."
It's time we figure out a way to stop living like this, don't you think?
*****
April 20, 1999: Columbine was unfathomable, wasn't it? I was still 13 years old and was attending St. Paul's Virtual Academy, so I wasn't in a physical school. I wasn't even in the same state or the same country. It was difficult to wrap my head around that sort of violence happening at a school, or anywhere, for that matter.
Not-so-fun fact: Andrew's cousins attended Columbine High School and got to live through that whole nightmare scenario.
April 28, 1999: About a week later, a young man from Taber took a sawn-off rifle to W. R. Myers High School, his pockets filled with ammunition. He shot and killed a preacher's son in the cafeteria and wounded another student before the PE teacher tackled him to the ground and restrained him.
Not-so-fun fact: That was my cousin's high school, and is a quick drive down highway 2 from my own school. Unlike my small town that is decidedly not a Mormon town, Taber is rather a Mormon-y town in Southern Alberta (there are many Mormon-founded settlements in southern Alberta—Taber, Raymond, and Cardston, to name a few). Taber even have release-time seminary—imagine that! We were stuck with early morning seminary in High River. Anyway, my cousin happened to be in the seminary building rather than in the high school while that event was unfolding.
The father of Jason Lang—the boy who was killed—came to our school to do an assembly the following year, when I was in the high school. It was a solemn, solemn day.
We moved to the states the next year and I was terrified of all the big guns I knew were lurking in people's houses (we do not keep guns like that in Canada). We also started having "active shooter" or "lockdown" drills that year.
I remember one drill in particular because I was working in my high school's daycare center that day (I had a childcare class that was honestly quite a wonderful experience). I was 15 years old, but instead of having a teacher direct me to get under my desk and lock the door, I was one of the teachers pulling armfuls of preschool children behind an overturned table, locking the door, turning off the lights, and ever-so-quietly mime-singing nursery rhymes to try to keep them from crying out.
Those drills were spooky. Traumatizing, really.
And here we are a quarter of a century later—and we are still satisfied with traumatizing school children in place of taking any sort of meaningful action.
The drills are still terrifying because the kids know...
They know that any day it could be them....or their cousin...or their friend...staring down the end of a barrel, pleading for their life.
And I think those are valid fears for the children to have.
I know because Rachel was in kindergarten when Sandy Hook happened.
December 14, 2012: My sweet kindergarten baby got to walk off the school bus that day. I wrapped her in my arms and I never wanted to let go. And she couldn't understand why I was just so overjoyed to see her. But I just was because she was standing there, a living, breathing miracle.
And we were thousands of miles away from Newtown!
September 4, 2024: My sweet high school senior held her phone up to my face to show me the news, her eyes popping. "I've texted my friends and they're all okay. I didn't know what high school they go to, but they're all in the one across town..." And that's nice. But we're not really okay, are we? So many families are even more not okay than we are.
We are thirty miles away from Apalachee.
I know people whose own little kindergarten babies were sitting in class at Yargo Elementary School, right next door.
It's been a hard few days.
And how many school shootings took place in those 12 years Rachel has been a student? Hundreds.
This is a uniquely American problem. That means it needs a uniquely American solution. The time has come to problem solve—not brainstorm stopgap measures, but to Solve. The. Problem.
*****
In other news, my mom sent a package to us and it just arrived today. Inside were a bunch of trinkets and treats to take up room around some books Rachel had requested from my mom.
The treats and trinkets were appreciated because we're all feeling a bit like we're reeling and those things were nice and distracting.
But the main reason for the package was so Rachel could get her hands on a couple of books about our ancestor, Louis Conrad, who was murdered in 1953. One book is simply about various murders in the area in which Louis died, and which includes research into Louis's murder. Another book is authored by the murderer himself (a sixteen year old boy with a gun who just wasn't thinking straight).
*****
We are failing our children.
We failed the children who died this week. We failed the children who were physically injured this week. We failed all the children who were traumatized this week.
We failed the shooter himself.
Something is not right. Something is fundamentally wrong.
And I believe it is wrong to carry on as is. It is wrong to be complacent with this reality.
That's all.
Apparently I need to vent...
ReplyDeleteI read an article, long lost to the internet, which said that the one thing that all mass shootings (again, why is this a phrase?) had in common was that they were suicide attempts. Why has this not become common knowledge? Why are we so inept at mental health? Why is there next to no support for families trying to get care? Why is there so little compassion for young men (most shooters) who are in such severe mental health crisis that they consider such violence? And WHY don't people know the statistic that guns are far more likely to hurt someone you know than to protect you from a stranger. I got into an elevator with a man proudly wearing an NRA hat - I wanted to demand that he provide me with some answers, but he was frail and I hate confrontation, so I didn't. Their silence is deafening.
I'm right there with you—this was a child in crisis.
DeleteMental health needs to be more accessible, guns less accessible. I think school systems need some recalibration (too much pressure on this kids to perform, IMO). Toxic masculinity, bullying, etc. etc. need to be addressed. We need to examine so many areas to see what we can do better. Because we—as a society—are not okay. Clearly.