The first school shooting I saw on the news was Sandy Hook in 2012. I remember the shock and fear that radiated all over my body and wondered if I was in a nightmare. If this is the world we were really living in.
Cut to years later and now when I turn on the news and see another mass shooting in Nashville, all I feel is numbness. In America, gun violence and mass shootings have risen in the past quarter century without a sign of resolution in sight.
As a nation, the news of mass shooting stories has put us into a trauma-like state of numbness as we are slowly realizing we’re living in a time when children dying by guns is normal.
While gun violence increases, the U.S. has increased awareness and security measures in schools. Things such as surveillance systems, zero-tolerance policies, emergency drills, and anti-bullying initiatives are now considered the basic security setup for public and private schools.
Yet these solutions only seem like a bandaid covering up an infected wound that continues to spread, and fast.
Gun control laws seem to switch back and forth from state to state as politicians are never able to come to terms with one another for a final solution. Constitutional laws like the second amendment and a person’s right to bear arms are topics that bring about debates that can last a lifetime.
One of the most recent resolutions issued by political leaders is arming teachers as a preventative measure from future school shootings. From a tactical military standpoint, this might make sense, but tactics and real-life experiences never seem to have the same solution.
While it may seem like a good move to arm educators, it only perpetuates the notion of adding more guns to the issue at hand — basically resolving guns with more guns.
Teachers, who are the backbone of a child’s developmental education, are now put into the horrific scenario of anticipating the day when a child they have sworn to protect points a gun at them. And an even worse scenario, pulling the trigger themselves, killing one life to save others.
This is one of the many reasons why teachers are leaving schools at a rapid pace, which only creates more issues in the education system with a lack of staff and proper pay. And while statistics might sway readers to think that gun violence and shootings are only in smaller poorer communities, this is far from the truth.
Children across the United States are feeling the effects of a nation that cannot seem to gain control of gun violence. Kids who are exposed to gun violence and shootings are more prone to experience negative short and long-term psychological effects that can severely impact their mental health.
And as parents, we have lobbied and screamed and cried and begged for resolutions and some have come and some have gone. We have met with leaders and presidents (plural) for answers only for the same issues to occur the following year. Yet the real issue of gun violence starts at the core of America itself.
While the current laws and constitution have upheld America for hundreds of years, it’s time to come to terms with the reality of what these laws truly are: outdated.
In a new world where A.I. is fastly approaching, generations are changing, and life as we know it has completely evolved from even the past three years, we also have to face the reality that this nation needs to upgrade its laws.
America is a nation that knows entertainment but not evolution.
Trying to stick to the old rhetoric of the American constitution when we as a nation are farther along, more than what our forefathers have dreamed about, is equivalent to forcing a teenager to stay a child forever. It cannot work and it will not work.
As a nation, it’s time to take a seat and reevaluate the core values of America instead of trying to preserve what once was. This is not an act of rebellion and this is not a notion of illuminating laws altogether which is ridiculous, but this is a plea for an upgrade in a world where children are dying.
If we as a nation can get on board and come to terms that in order for things to change, laws have to change, then there might be a silver of hope on the horizon. But it can only work if we all can agree that this nation needs this to happen.
If not for our sake, then for the sake of the child that has to go into a school building with the fear of them never coming home.
Til next time,
