[Note: Dateline 4:41 pm Wednesday September 4, 2024: I had just finished my regular weekly post, ironically on schools in honor of today, Sept. 4, being the first day of school in my community, when I got news of the most recent school mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia earlier today. Four dead, two students and two teachers. Nine injured. The shooter was 14 years old. Friday’s post will happen as usual; I had THIS post queued up and ready to send some months ago—while the last school year was still in session. I queued it up because I knew today was going to happen—not that it happened in this way, on this day, nor even in Georgia. But that it was going to happen somewhere, at some time, in a school just like the one in your own community. And so it has.
And so it will again; this has become one of the things we can count on in our country. We should be so proud, right? Even about as proud as we can be, or are, if we are a gun owner—if you own a gun. Most of those I know who own a gun, even in my own family, are proud gun owners.
School for the year has just started, y’all. And we mourn yet again another meaningless, utterly preventable mass shooting tragedy in one of our schools.]
Only in America.
This may be the first time in my writing that I’m going to start with a WARNING! So, shouting at you is intentional.
***WARNING:
THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS WRITING THAT DISCUSSES SCHOOL SHOOTINGS—AND STUDENT DEATH AS A RESULT. IF YOU FIND THE FOLLOWING TROUBLING, GOOD. SO DO I. BUT THIS IS OUR SHARED REALITY IN OUR COUNTRY—THESE SHOOTINGS, WITH MASS CASUALTIES, DO NOT HAPPEN IN OTHER COUNTRIES AT THE ALARMING RATES AND TRAGIC OUTCOMES THAT OCCUR HERE, MULTIPLE TIMES EVERY YEAR, IN THE COUNTRY MOST OF US BELIEVE IS THE GREATEST COUNTRY ON EARTH. THIS IS HAPPENING IN OUR SCHOOLS—WHICH IS CODE FOR “IT IS HAPPENING IN YOUR SCHOOLS.”
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED TO STOP READING IF YOU FIND THIS TOO UPSETTING. BUT I HOPE YOU CONTINUE TO READ. IF YOU DO FIND IT UPSETTING, GOOD, YOU SHOULD—BUT ONLY IF YOU ARE UPSET FOR THE RIGHT REASON; NOT THAT I MAY BE ABOUT TO OFFEND YOU, BUT BECAUSE EVERY YEAR OUR KIDS AND TEACHERS ARE GETTING KILLED IN SCHOOL. THAT SHOULD BE WHAT UPSETS US—THAT SHOULD BE WHAT IS MORALLY REPREHENSIBLE TO US.
IF YOU ARE UPSET FOR THAT REASON, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE ABOUT IT? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? AND STOP WITH THE “I’LL SEND MY THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS TO ALL THOSE SUFFERING A LOSS.” JUST…STOP WITH THAT.
WHO ARE YOU VOTING FOR AND WHAT POLICIES DO YOU SUPPORT?
***END OF WARNING
I’m sitting down to draft this, on Sunday, February 25, 2024, knowing I would be sending this out after the next school shooting in America. Because I know we’re just counting the minutes for when the next one comes. This is what we do here in America. We send thoughts and prayers to the families who remain after our children are murdered when they should be reading Dr. Seuss, dividing fractions, studying chemistry and English, reading rich literature, and falling into puppy love with “that one over there.”
I had, no, still have a stake in this matter—for me, it was both personal and professional (this is the third year of my retirement from public school education). I am the father of two kids who, thankfully, made it all the way through their K-12 and beyond educations without having to personally witness a school shooting in their schools. I finished a 33 year career as an educator without having to personally witness a school shooting in any of my schools. THESE facts were not 100% certainties.
During many of these shootings, principals have died as they’ve tried to get in the way, protect, or stop the shooter.
To name just two of my heroes:
Dawn Hochsprung, 47, principal of Sandy Hook Elementary (d: Dec. 14, 2012)
Daniel Marburger, 56, principal at Perry High in Iowa (d: Jan 14, 2024)
Over the course of my career, especially following the Columbine mass school shootings, I thought a lot, A LOT, about whether I would try to get in the way of, or try to stop, what we called in our biz “an active shooter.” Look people, our teachers should NEVER have to worry about “active shooters.” But they do. And they keep showing up to love on and teach kids, OUR kids, every day.
I want to believe I would—stop a shooter that is. I envisioned how I would were I to be in any space in my schools when an active shooter entered. I had imagined how I would hide behind certain pieces of furniture or walls to confront the active shooter. I imagined that if they were still on the move, firing at kids or into classrooms, that I wasn’t going to hide behind a door just to save my ass. Those were MY kids that were dying; those were MY teachers, my family, who were dying. I had resigned myself to never have “survivor’s remorse” by not doing something to stop the carnage. But the fact is, one never knows how one will react until you’re there.
I never had to be there. Ms. Hochsprung and Mr. Marburger were there in my place instead.
Lucky me. Yeah, lucky me.
We’re learning that when mass shootings occur in public spaces outside of schools, when adults (parents) have their kids with them, that the kids themselves are telling the adults what to do right away when an active shooter is in proximity. Our KIDS are leading something they should know absolutely NOTHING about—because our kids are having to PRACTICE how to respond, in school, if an active shooter start shooting at them.
Over the course of my career, we drilled our students monthly on various state-mandated emergency response scenarios. You, of course, remember the Duck and Cover drills you did to give you what you didn’t know was actually a false sense of security should an earthquake happen. After Columbine (April 20, 1999), schools began to drill for active shooters to once again provide a false sense of security. You see my friends, if a person with a loaded gun goes to a school with the intent to kill, they are gonna kill. No one is safe. You cannot drill for an active shooter scenario.
It is also said, astonishingly and without embarrassment, that the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun. At Robb Elementary in Uvalde Texas, it took armed police and SWAT tactical units (TACTICAL UNITS!) over an hour to take down the shooter after he had killed 19 children and two teachers. The “brave” officers who swore to “protect and serve” were right outside the classroom doors and windows protecting themselves behind walls and barricades as the shooter remained in the classroom, killing teachers and students.
So you prove to me: how’d that work out with all those armed good guys out there? BTW, don’t lose an important point when some idiot uses that line of thinking: school active shooter drills to protect oneself, with that thinking, that we wait until the good guys show up, will always fail. Even when they are right outside the door, kids will die.
Note: “Arming school staffs with guns is NOT the direction I’m going here. Listen and read closely: WE DO NOT WANT TO ARM OUR TEACHERS AND PRINCIPALS (yelling again very intentional). Doing so fundamentally changes what school is. And we need our schools to be “not that.”
To make this clearly political, there are Republican members of Congress who are actively creating legislation to arm teachers—some districts have already, under state law, allowed teachers to carry concealed weapons into their classrooms. Were that to become more commonplace, mark my words here and now, there will be a time when a teacher, in her attempt to “take out the shooter,” inadvertently kills one of her own students. But let’s just agree to not even go anywhere near that dystopian future. Please. There was not a single teacher under my direct supervision who I would have wanted to have a gun in their classroom. Not. A. Single. One.
We ALL need to understand that we ALL have a stake in this matter. “Those” kids are our kids. “Those” teachers are our favorite teachers. Until we understand that, with every school shooting past and yet to still come, our hearts will remain cold to the full ramifications of our loss. Any loss of life within the confines of what should be a safe school is our loss.
I come with receipts:
In 2019, firearm-related injuries surpassed motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of adolescent death in America. Let THAT settle in….
Death by gunfire is now the leading cause of death in our kids.
Death by gunfire is now the leading cause of death in our kids.
Death by gunfire is now the leading cause of death in our kids.
I’m going to get real political again—because school shootings ARE a political entity in our country. To all gun owners who stand firmly behind the Second Amendment and are against all forms of legislation that might stem the overwhelming tide of active shooter events in our schools, but yet send your “thoughts and prayers” to grieving families…fuck you! Want to turn the conversation towards mental health issues? Fine, good… and fuck you again—because what legislation did you support that added mental health resources to our school and communities (I’ll answer for you, NONE!).
And I’m looking at all of you, who are mostly Republicans, who vote Republican because you want more Americans to have access to guns with little to no hurdles to get in the way of their purchase, who buy them and keep them in your homes for the false security you pretend it will provide you in defense of your families, in your own homes; yes, I’m looking at each of YOU because when the next school shooting occurs, I want you to understand YOU had a part to play in it. YOU are a part of the problem.
It doesn’t have to be that way. We live in the year 2024, and it simply doesn’t have to be like this.
[Four more families today, September 4, 2024, have just learned their kids, their spouses, their brothers and sisters, their mom and/or dad, will not be home from school today. Or ever. All they did this morning was leave to go to school. That’s it. Their families are now having to plan funerals. It simply doesn’t have to be like this.]
I hesitated as to whether to introduce you to this short animated movie called “If anything happens, I love you.” It’s exceptional and one of the more shockingly sad pieces of animated “non-fiction” that I have ever seen. “Non-fiction” I place in quotes because it’s not a documentary based on any one particular event, except for what every single parent who expected their child to come home after school, but didn’t, feels.
Here’s the trailor—but it doesn’t do justice to the entire short movie. If you have Netflix, and if you had any stake in a school at all over the course of your entire life, then I think you have a moral obligations to watch this. You’ll need tissues.
Until next time, ya’ll—until the next one. It’s right around the bend. Mark my word; mark this date. It will happen again in a school far too near you.
God Bless America.
💜
~ kert
PS: We can do better.
It's clear you are passionate about this issue, Kert; but it was unnecessary for you to become vulgar and to suggest that someone should rape me simply because I want to protect myself, my family, and my home.
Yes, the repeated multiple murders have a political aspect to them: after all, they are nearly all done in public schools. And, as your graphs clearly show, the Biden administration holds the record for the most killings in a single year.
Was it done because Sniffy Joe was in office or was it done because civility and morality are no longer taught in American homes and public schools? The example you gave of Uvalde is the best reason I can imagine for teachers and parents to all carry handguns. After all, it was not a "good guy with a gun" that allowed all of those killings. It was a cowardly and poorly trained law enforcement community. Every officer that went to Uvalde on that day should be fired and every man or woman or psycho that was in a position of authority should be tried as accessories to murder.
America is a violent and reactive society. It was among the first (maybe the first) to outlaw opium and cannabis - two things known to create sleepiness and non-violence. The public schools, as well as the drunk and drug addicted, self-centered and stupid parents are as much to fault as the news media that crams fear and hatred 24/7 down our throats.
Since public schools have proven themselves incapable of educating children, they should either be disbanded or re-imagined as places where morals and right-living are taught. I have written frequently about a college class I took called Mental Hygeine. It taught me more than most of my other classes. The professor, a black man, needed to take a hiatus from school to represent his wife who was being tried for murder. When he returned to classes, shaken and humble, he made the statement that all prejudices have a basis in fact. We are, after all, still humans.
America is facing the imminent destruction of its society and institutions. Everyone can feel it. It is in the air. People are frightened and arming themselves against the inevitable. Children pick up on the unease and anger in their parents (or, as often as not, the resentment of the grandparents forced to raise them) and some go nuts. When they do, they need to be put down as the feral animals they have become.
What example does our government give with its eternal wars and its multiple murders in Waco and Ruby Ridge? How about the fact that it sacrifices our best young men to defend fascism in Ukraine and to spread the One World Government (that now seems inevitable).
Personally, I would sacrifice any amount of money I had to keep my children out of public school. It is the training ground for the packs of vicious and soulless scum that now control the USSA.
It doesn't matter who we vote for for president. Things will not change.
But I appreciate that you have the freedom to spout off.
We need to do better.
Trump stands behind bulletproof glass to give speeches now & yet cannot get behind gun control. The general public has no need for military weapons- period