This is Our Solution?

This is Our Solution?

Kids shooting other kids at school:  it seems that since the 1990’s we have been struggling with how to deal with this. We have tried lockdowns, run aways, and throwing rocks, balls, and soup cans.  The police went from waiting outside to negotiate, to charging in to take down the shooter.  

But the drumbeat of shootings goes on and on and on.  In the last two weeks we have had two school shootings, one in Charlotte, North Carolina, and one in suburban Denver.  And while we adults have come up with all sorts of ideas and training to prepare our students for what seems like the inevitable attack, nothing has worked.

So the students have found their own way.  Someone; some heroic kid, attacks the shooter.  They are likely to be killed in the attempt, but as long as the shooter doesn’t have an assault rifle, there’s a reasonable chance that the first attacker will slow up the carnage.  Then, others will have time to run, or to mass and overwhelm the “gun.”

Riley Howell:  he was a soccer goalie in high school, and now was studying environmental science.  When a shooter entered his classroom at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Riley Howell chose to attack rather than hide.  He knocked the shooter down, pinning him until the police arrived.  Riley died from gunshot wounds.  

Kendrick Castillo: four days from his graduation at the STEM School at Highland Ranch, he wanted to become a Marine.  He was a four-year member of the STEM School robotics club. When the shooter came through his classroom door, he charged rather than hide under a desk.  He took the shots, but knocked the shooter down.  His classmates then controlled the shooter until the police arrived.  Kendrick died from gunshot wounds. 

We need to celebrate their heroism.  We need to say their names, rather than the names of the shooters.  We need to be proud of their sacrifice, and we need to recognize the sorrow of their parents and friends.  These were obviously two very special men.

But Riley and Kendrick also represent an absolute failure of our society to deal with our problem.  We have given the students nothing:  no solution, no way to avoid what seems to be a more and more frequent tragedy.  We have said:  we can’t fix this, do it yourself.

We have allowed our political divisiveness to handcuff our actions.  Politicians; those elected officials to whom we have entrusted the honor of finding solutions to our problems, are so afraid of offending radicalized gun owners, that they do nothing.  Nothing, that is, besides sending their thoughts and prayers to the parents of Riley and Kendrick.

There are lots of solutions that might take the guns out of the hands of the shooters.  But we are so paralyzed by political fear that we can’t even agree to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, much less kids at the door of the classroom.  We have checked our courage at that door, and allowed these young adults, and the ones who have been marching since Parkland, to carry it for us.

We, adults in the United States, are making a choice.  We are ALLOWING this to go on.  We are making the political choice to do what is easy, nothing; rather than what is hard. By not reaching a solution, coming up with a plan better than sacrificing the best or throwing soup cans; we are failing the future, our children.

Other nations do it. Whether you like the solution or not, New Zealand took less than two weeks to react to a white nationalist attack, and ban assault weapons.  Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and most of the rest of the industrial world has found a way to protect their kids.  

We need to overcome our impotence.  We need to stop asking our best to sacrifice themselves to protect their classmates. We need to act as adults and find real solutions. It’s what our kids expect us to do.