It has happened again. More killing at a school for young children. In Nashville, TN today, Monday, March 27, 2023, an active shooter killed 3 children and 3 adults before being killed himself. You can read and follow the details as they unfold. This follows students being killed at Michigan State University in February and at a charter school in Iowa in January.
There remains, as always, the questions as to why people keep shooting people (especially kids) at schools. The larger question is why do people shoot people at all? We all know the range of answers people give – lack of God/religion, inadequate mental health care, declining culture, video games, etc.
The one undeniable fact in all cases of school shootings, the consistent thread that ties them together is the shooter(s) access to the gun or guns. Whether their access was perfectly legal and appropriate from a smart background check and waiting periods, achieved from “knowing where the guns are kept”, obtained illegally, or from skirting inadequate laws to purchase, the fact remains that school shooters accessed a deadly weapon and committed murder.
I am still haunted by the events at East Carter High School, Uvalde, TX and many of the other well-known school shootings. While I believe in doing all that we can from every angle to prevent gun violence of any kind, I know that many of those solutions take time and resources… all the while kids… babies are dying.
There are groups like Everytown/Moms Demand Action, Sandy Hook Promise, and Giffords Law Center that are working to educate on data, advocate on legislation, and provide programming to work on the solutions I mentioned that will take time. They are working to educate about bad legislation and promote good legislation that will support safety in relation to gun access. This is a fight I care very much about and want to join.
I just wonder how many more kids will die while these folks are fighting to neutralize this consistent factor in every school shooting. The absurdity of my last sentence makes me mad. There should be no fight over neutralizing the consistent factor in school shootings, that are murdering babies it should be an overwhelming National rallying cry.
