Like so many Americans and so many around the world, I take issue with the NRA's idiotic proposal to post armed guards at every school in America for so many reasons. Too numerous to name - and the media has gone through most of them. They are plentiful and obvious.
But the biggest problem I have with with it is one I haven't heard discussed much. Let me start with a story. (as always!)
My youngest son is a sophomore in high school. He's a very sensitive kid. As well as being adorable, smart as a whip, talented, etc etc etc... We had a long discussion about Sandy Hook on the day it happened. He was understandably horrified.
Last Thursday we got a robo-call from our high school principal. He noted that there were rumors going around about how there would be violence at school on Friday because of "the end of the world". He explained that these were simply rumors, there was no credible threat, and that our local PD would have extra security on campus and parents shouldn't worry.
Great - but what about the kids? Nobody ever thinks about the psychological impact of repeated threats of violence on kids in school. My son's response was "Oh great. Cops on campus. We must be so safe." (insert the sarcasm only a teenager is capable of delivering).
Well, the end of the world came and went, and along with it came Wayne LaPierre's unbelievably stubborn, ignorant, and horrifying suggestion to put armed guards at every school. Ignorant because it won't work. Is he aware that Columbine had an armed guard on duty? Is he aware that most shopping malls have armed guards? Should we put an armed guard at every movie theater, every fire, every house of worship? A single person armed with handguns or even a shotgun is no match for an adult wearing body armor with a semi-automatic or automatic weapon that shoots 30-60 rounds in the space of a minute or less. It just isn't.
Stubborn because LaPierre flies in the face of the desires of Americans and even his own NRA constituency. Most of us want some sort of gun control - the average citizen does not want or need a high capacity magazine or a weapon that shoots hundreds of bullets in hundreds of seconds. I have a friend who said it best. The only hunting done by those weapons is human hunting.
And horrifying because the majority of us picture more guns on campus, more opportunities for anger management by gunfire, and more ways to frighten our children.
So back to my story. I could see in my son's face and eyes the fear wrought be the idea of the need for armed guards at his school. And he's a teen. He has seen violent movies. He's played violent video games (though thankfully, he doesn't really care for them much - yay!). He sits at the dinner table and discusses current events with us. He's well aware that violence exists. And yet he fears the implication that his "safe place" - school - is unsafe. The place where he goes - without his parents - every day, could be the place that he is most vulnerable. Imagine how that fear would multiply if he was still in elementary school.
And so I hugged my boy and reassured him that he was safe. That his school was safe. That his world was a safe place and he can live his carefree life as always. Like a child should. Free to explore, learn and thrive in a safe place.
Although his delivery could have been a hell of a lot better, even President Bush (the worst president. EVAR) didn't want us to live like we were intimidated or afraid after 9/11. Yes, the whole "go shopping" thing was incredibly poorly delivered. But the sentiment behind it - your world is safe - was a good one. Too bad he then fearmongered the rest of his presidency in order to win elections and restrictions on freedoms and went on to become the worst president in American history, but that's a story for another day. Bottom line was, when the horrifying events of 9/11 happened, President Bush tried to reassure us that we were safe in going about our everyday business. He didn't tell us to be afraid (that came later, of course).
I don't want my children living in fear every day. Having armed guards on campus doesn't make kids feel safer. It makes them more fearful. It makes them think they are in perpetual danger. It makes them think that they are not safe. And it will make some of them more likely to bring weapons on campus in order to protect themselves from that unknown evil. And children and guns DO. NOT. MIX. Because guns are not an anger management tool. They are not a fear management tool. They are deadly weapons that kill. And people who live in fear are more likely to use deadly force if it is at their disposal.
I want my kids to grow up knowing that there are times when bad people do bad things, but that most of us are law-abiding, good people. I don't want them to be distrustful of all they meet. I want them to be open to new experiences. Open to meeting new people. Open to new and different ideas. Open to learning how to have disagreements and resolve them. Without violence. To know that there are so many ways to learn from others and that our way is not always the ONLY way. That when you don't agree with someone, it's ok to yell and scream, but it's never ok to use violence to solve disagreements. Any sort of violence, but especially deadly violence. And I want other people's children to learn these same things, so that my kids don't need to live in fear of being shot in a disagreement, or road rage, or by a trigger-happy fearful armed guard who refuses to let kids learn and grow by having heated disagreements on campus.
Placing armed guards at their "safe place" makes that impossible for my kids and yours. It removes their feelings of safety - and school is the only safe place for so many kids who face uncertainty at home, whether financial or emotional. It is the one stable environment for so many kids.
I don't want my boys heading off for 8 hours a day to a place that makes them afraid for their lives. What does that do to our next generation of kids? And their emotional stability? Their psychological well-being?
I urge you to call your Congressmen and Senators and implore... no... DEMAND that they reinstitute the assault weapons ban as a first step toward making our kids safer.
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