By Leslie Schreiber
The tragedy that occurred at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas School on Valentine’s Day was completely avoidable. The government’s response was completely predictable. The President’s foolhardy suggestions were completely untenable. And now 14 more children have had their futures stolen from them because of guns. Fourteen children’s parents have lost their children, have lost the chance to watch their children grow up and have families of their own.
As a parent, school safety is of paramount importance to me. On the one hand, I don’t want my children to worry when they go to class that one of their own will bring a gun—any size gun—to school with an intent to do harm. On the other, I don’t want my children being educated in a place where heavily armed guards patrol a walled campus. That is not a school—that is a prison. Have we really sunk so low in this country that we are having a conversation about arming teachers?
What can we, as parents, as potential parents, do? Well, for one thing, we can have a REAL discussion about gun control, as the brave students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas are forcing us to have. We can vote out our politicians who are cowed by an organization whose mission, a long time ago, was gun safety and responsibility, but is now the propaganda arm for the weapons industry. We can refuse this ridiculous notion of arming teachers, which would, in an emergency situation, create only more chaos and death.[1] We can support these amazingly brave students across the country who are standing up to the powers that be and telling them “Never again!” We can let our children grow up to be the kind of parents we hope we have been for them.
[1] Hansen, M., “There are Ways to Make Schools Safer and Teachers Stronger—But They Don’t Involve Guns,” Brookings Inst. (Feb. 27, 2018), available at https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2018/02/27/there-are-ways-to-make-schools-safer-and-teachers-stronger-but-they-dont-involve-guns/?utm_campaign=Brookings%20Brief&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=61031052 (last visited Mar. 4, 2018).