According to the Center for Homeland Defense and Security at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA, from 2012 to the present there have been 540 school shooting incidents nationwide that resulted in at least one person killed or wounded. We’ve sunken into a deep dark well when the answer to school shootings becomes a victim of political debate. The Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas continues to shake the nation and the ongoing debate over the availability of assault rifles continues to showcase the fragility of America’s democracy.
The nation had not yet fully grieved the loss of 10 innocent lives in the racially motivated marketplace shooting in Buffalo, New York when a second assault weapon wielding assailant tragically murdered 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas two days before summer vacation was set to begin.
The right and expectation to return home from the grocery store and to hug your children when they run through the door after school is not a partisan issue. It is a normal, run-of-the-mill expectation in most nations. But we’ve reached a time and place in America where schools and shopping markets become heinous crime scenes in the blink of an eye. Each day 12 children die from gun violence in America and another 32 are shot or injured (New England Journal of Medicine).
Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy put into words the helplessness felt by many Americans over gun violence. “What are we doing?” he begged of his colleagues in congress. A Democrat, Murphy said he would “bend over backwards” to reach a gun rights compromise with Republicans that would lessen the likelihood of assault-weapon driven massacres from occurring. “I want to show this country that we care,” he said.
For the men and women entrusted to care for students every day, school safety is not a political issue. It is a matter of life and death, and their role as educators has never been more important. It was Maximilien Robespierre, a lawyer, statesman, and key figure in the French Revolution who said: “The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.” So, amid the debate swirling around us as educators, despite the gripping fear school shootings fuel, educators persist.
They persist because they know the answer to the problem may be the student sitting before them today. They persist because they know intelligence must overtake ignorance. They persist because they are teachers at heart. Thank God they do because the fragility of our democracy calls for strength. Strength to pull us out of the deep dark well that we have sunken into, the strength found every day in our schools, and in everyday people. Yet, educators alone cannot fix the problem of gun violence.
As a democratic society, it is in our national interest to demand a policy response from elected leaders (and policy makers) to put children and communities first and commit to actions that reduce gun violence in schools.