The whole world is reeling, or it should be, from the school shooting that took place on Valentine’s Day, 2018.  17 people died in the Parkland, Florida shooting, 14 students, mostly 9^th graders, and three teachers, each of whom was rushing to help or actually shielding kids from bullets with their own body.  It was all over the news. But much of the coverage was about how routine this has become.  How the deaths of so many really don’t affect us anymore because we are too used to it.  And there is some marit to our numbing through repetition.  This year, alone, there have been eight school shootings resulting in injury or death (Beckett).  While that is less than the shocking eighteen reported in a tweet by Everytown for Gun Safety (Cox), it is still a terrifying number.  Eight!  That is more than one every week in January and February, as of the writing of this blog. 

I didn’t find out about the shooting until the end of the day on Wednesday.  I was at the optometrist when the technician asked me if I had heard the news.  I listened in disbelief to the radio on the drive home.  Not again! circled through my mind.  I can remember each shooting back to Columbine, when we all thought the world had gone mad, but still believed it was a temporary sort of insanity.  There have been 25 more “fatal, active school shootings at elementary and high schools in America” since then (Wilstein).

The morning after the shooting, I was listening to National Public Radio. I was caught by the lead, “People in certain jobs develop a working relationship with death” then struck down by the list of those jobs: nurses, soldiers, police . . . teachers (  NPR ).  It literally took me out at the knees. I had to sit to process it.  I’ve been teaching for 27 years, so Columbine, which happened on April 20, 1999, was eight years into my career.  Then, when we all thought it was a tragic fluke, I was comparing it to my own experience. The worst thing I had needed to protect my students from was the great Inaugural Day Windstorm of 1993, when the electricity went out in the community and we had to sit in near darkness for two hours before it was safe for the busses to come take them home.  Shielding my students from the assault of lead and gunpowder with my own flesh was something that never crossed my  mind.  Now, 19 years later, the idea is a present companion. 

Another thing has changed since Columbine.  I am now the mother of 15 year old twins who also happen to attend the high school at which I teach. One of them wants to be a police officer.  When my son told me about his career aspirations, my immediate reaction was not pride but fear.  You want to be a what?  But that is such a dangerous job! I know if he becomes a cop, I will start clocking sleepless hours worrying about him being hurt or even killed in the line of duty.  I’m not sure how any mother deals with that constant fear.  Oh, wait a minute, I do.  Because every time every bullet hit a child  Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, I saw the faces of my son and daughter, and the faces of the nearly 2,000 students I have taught in that time.  And I wonder, would I have the courage to throw myself between a gunman and one of my charges?  Would another teacher do the same for my own children?

I long for the days when the stress of my job was trying to grade the monolithic stack of essays piled on my desk, or dealing with a frustrated parent who needed to vent their anger, or motivating a student who didn’t see the point in reading  Nathaniel Hawthorne (I never really have come up with a good answer for that one.)  But now I have to think about how to hide my students in a room dark enough and quiet enough to appear empty to a person with a gun.  I have to time myself on pulling the shades and locking the door because I’m on the first floor and seconds count.  I have to think about ways to sooth and console students who hear about these shootings each week and fear that they are not safe at school.  And I have to wonder what I can do to stop this madness. 

I must confess, I don’t own a gun.  When my kids were younger, I always asked the person to whose house they were going for a playdate if they had a gun, and if they did, would suggest meeting at a park or at my house.  So to me it seems like a no-brainer: no more guns = no more school shootings.  But I know the issue is more complicated than that.  We desperately need more attention paid and more funds allocated to mental health support services.  The increase in student mental health diagnoses has multiplied exponentially in the last 20 years.  Anxiety, depression and PTSD top the list of challenges our students live with.  Then, again, mental illness was present when I was in elementary school, but how many school shootings were there in 1976?  Three.  I googled it (Wikipedia).  Any how many died?  Seven.  I googled that, too (K-12 Academics).  So identification and care for the mentally ill is not the single answer.  Security in schools could be increased.  But, as Robert Runcie, superintendent of the Broward County school district reflected, “you can create a prison and try to … secure every single thing that you want and try to put the kids in there. And, you know, at some point, our students actually have to leave the campus” (Broward). 

It seems to me guns are the common denominator — and not just any gun, but guns that can fire large quantities of bullets in rapid succession with high impact.  So I’m not talking about doing away with all guns.  I’m talking about assault weapons like the one used in Sandy Hook and Parkland, an AR-15.  Again, I did some exploring of the difference between a typical handgun and an AR-15.    According to the NBC News website, a typical 9mm handgun is generally seen as an effective weapon.  It is likely if you own only one gun that you own a 9mm.  When fired, bullets from these guns travel at 1,200 feet per second and deliver a kinetic energy of 400 foot pounds. Compare the to an AR-15, where a bullet fired from that weapon travels at 3,251 feet per second and delivers 1300 foot pounds (nbcnews.com).  Make sense?  It didn’t to me either.  Here is another way to look at it, again from nbcnews.com,

(A) typical 9mm handgun wound to the liver will produce a pathway of tissue destruction in the order of 1-2 inches. In comparison, an AR-15 round to the liver will literally pulverize it, much like dropping a watermelon onto concrete results in the destruction of the watermelon. Wounds like this, as one sees in school shootings like Sandy Hook and Parkland where AR-15s were used, have high fatality rates.

Anther way to see it—an AR-15 assault rifle can hold a magazine of 100 bullets.  An “average” shooter can pull the trigger two times per second.  That means in less than a minute, a gunman can get off 100 shots, each capable of ripping a fatal hole in a young body, each capable of tearing a person away from their family. 

Why do we need these?  What possible sports or recreational purpose does this serve?

I believe in the power of prayer.  I may be an anomaly, but I do.  But prayer is not enough when we can do so much more!  We need to take steps to stop this madness.  And I know some people will be with me until the mention of guns, but I don’t care.  I cannot keep silent when my children’s lives, my friends’ lives, my life are on the line.  Keep your guns, if you must, but let’s enact some sane measures to keep weapons of mass destruction from devastating our communities. 

The story has evolved over the two weeks since the shootings.  We, fortunately, had a break for a week, where I got to hunker down and regroup.  The discussion that first started as numbness, has since turned to outrage and action.  Perhaps it is because of the empowerment people are felling drafting off the MeToo movement and the Women’s Marches.  Perhaps it is because children are the most vocally active (and by this I cannot help but add, white, privileged students.)  Because of their voices, we have seen the discussion continue and expand far beyond any previous school shooting or other act of violence (take your pick from the last several years.) 

One surprising development that has shifted my personal thoughts and discussions is the suggestion by the President that we arm school staff, including teachers, as deterrents to future school violence, and give them bonuses if they do carry on duty.  The talk has ranged from holding up Texas as the model for a successful program of teachers who pack heat, to cries of shock and fear, pointing out how having a gun would make teachers a visible target of attack, and how, if this situation follows all data and statistics, that students of color would be disproportionally affected in a negative way (can you imagine teachers shooting students?)  Many seem in favor of armed teachers, armed security guards, metal detectors, police on campus, etc. to deter and respond to the next school shooting — and we are pretty sure there will be a next school shooting.  More seem to not favor it.  It definitely lines up along geographical lines, though, surprisingly, not totally along partisan lines.

Personal reaction, from what I can see, is less clear cut.  I have colleagues who are having a hard time.  In my conversations with them, and in my own feelings, we are here for all our kids (biological and professional, in my case.)  My friends and coworkers came into this because they felt a “call” to service to knowledge, to democracy, to our future.  But some are feeling wounded.  The “what if’s” that swirl in our heads and hearts only add to the crazy amount of stress this job holds. One teacher who was in school the week I was out experienced an unannounced fire drill that sent her into a panic.  Others talk about how this event has shifted the way they walk through halls.  One talked about having a hard time getting out of their car in the school parking lot. 

I’m glad the conversation is continuing.  I’m glad our youth are finding purpose and a cause worth activating over.  I hope we will listen.  And Washington State just banned bump-stocks, legislation which has been introduced before, but did not pass until February 23^rd of this year.  Because of all the conversation and press, I’m really not too surprised it passed.  This legislation bans augmentation that increases the “rate of fire achievable with the semiautomatic firearm to that of a fully automatic firearm.”  In other words, it turns a semiautomatic gun into a veritable machine gun, increasing the firing capacity and the fire power of a semi-automatic weapon.  Thank goodness some of our politicians had the gumption to say no one needs a device solely aimed at creating a military grade weapon.  Common sense, right?  So why did it only pass 56-41 in the House and 31-18 in the Senate? Who would note against such a bill?  I looked it up.  Here’s who:    

HOUSE DEMOCRATS

HOUSE REPUBLICANS

http://washingtonvotes.org/RollCall.aspx?ID=765748

SENATE DEMOCRATS

SENATE REPUBLICANS

http://washingtonvotes.org/RollCall.aspx?ID=766091

I’m tired of hearing about people diving.  I’m tired of  worrying about school shootings.  I’m tired of debates that are so polarized around partisanship that nothing ever gets done.  But what do we do?  How do we change things?  We live in a democracy, so if enough people feel the way I do, then we vote.  We vote for common sense.  We vote for decency.  We vote for adequate representation.  If law makers care voting against such a slam dunk, we demonstrate our anger and disgust with our vote.  If your legislator voted against the bump-stock ban, let them know.  When they come up for election, let them know then, too. 

We can make changes in our government.  If enough people engage, educate themselves, and vote, we can take back our democracy, our sense of safety, our hope for the future.  I can take back my life and not worry about my children or your children each day.