Our school children are by no means faced with extinction, but there's little doubt that they are endangered. Just since the Sandy Hook School shooting in 2012, "there have been at least 239 school shootings nationwide. In those episodes, 438 people were shot, 138 of whom were killed."
In 2018, 17 students were killed and 14 were injured at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on February 14, and two students were killed and 18 were injured at Marshall County High School in Benton, Kentucky on January 23.
By contrast, in 2018, one US soldier was killed and four were wounded in worn-torn Afghanistan. Although a number of factors contribute to the low casualty rate among US troops in Afghanistan, one factor must inarguably be that soldiers live and operate, where guns and bombs abound, under tight security.
Given that schools in America have routinely become the targets of disturbed individuals--typically young males--using a "variety" of guns, why aren't schools more tightly secured in much the same way that America's airports and government buildings (3 billion square feet of building space in over 900,000 structures) maintain layers of security at taxpayers’ expense? The Transportation Security Administration's 2018 budget is approximately $8 billion.
Add to that, that "the bipartisan budget was expected to include $716 billion for military spending in 2019," much of it used to fund wars in countries (e.g. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria) that pose no immediate threat to Americans at home, not to mention that the Pentagon . . . "had lost track of more than $800 million in construction projects." Difficult, then, to argue that money is an issue in protecting kids in the nation's schools by funding much the very same security measures in place at the nation's airports and government buildings. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be part of the conversation given the overwhelming focus on gun control and mental health issues--that may or may not deter school shooters--as the only solutions to a horrendous problem that plague America at this very moment.
No doubt that any gun control legislation will help protect students to some degree--but "some" is not enough. What is more, since the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012, "more than 100 gun control bills have . . . been introduced on Capitol Hill. All have failed." One hundred thirty-eight students and school staff, who are now dead, were waiting on lawmakers to protect them after Sandy Hook. Approximately 50.7 million students across the nation are waiting "today" for protection from the next school shooting. And, regretfully, there will be a "next." "Thoughts and prayers" and political high resolution optic proposals assuage--or dupe--much of the public and typically serve only the master.
True, the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban "reduced" the number of mass shooting deaths by 54.4 percent in a ten-year period, and, although the reduction was staggering and a welcome beginning to an evolution of sensible gun control, "reduction" has no meaning to the 81 students and staff who were killed during that same period and could have been saved had guns been stopped at the door. And then, tragically, the ban stopped automatically in 2004 because of the Sunset Clause and mass shooting deaths skyrocketed by 49.6 percent, from 81 to 163 student and staff deaths (colleges and universities included) between 2004 and 2018, lives that, again, could have been saved had guns been stopped at the door. How one reconciles the Sunset Clause that operates under desuetude, or obsolescence, is a grievous conundrum. Did the authors of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban conclude that school shootings in particular would become obsolete after ten years?
The outcry to once again ban assault weapons is no doubt justifiable, especially after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting where an assault rifle was used. However, banning assault rifles is only a small step in protecting students today given that 66 percent of the weapons used in mass shooting (1982 through 2012) were handguns, 16 percent were standard rifles and shotguns, while just 14 percent would qualify as assault weapons. Logically, then, in order to protect kids in schools today, all guns would have to be banned, and over 300 million guns in circulation today would have to be collected and destroyed. And that's just not going to happen.
Keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill is another strategy that will help keep school children safe, but past legislative efforts--The Gun Control Act of 1968, the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993, the NICS Improvement Amendment Act of 2007--intended to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally disturbed have been, for the most part, ineffective simply because each act, in itself, admits shortcomings that require enhancement by a following act, not to mention that the latest act, the NICS Improvement Amendment Act of 2007 was repealed and signed into law on February 28, 2017 by President Trump, thereby rendering the previous acts' mental illness clauses effectively impotent. Today, "[t]he reality is that, in most states, law-enforcement officials often can do nothing to prevent even an obviously troubled person from buying guns, let alone take steps to confiscate guns that the person might already own." At first glance, gun control law after control law that aims to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally disturbed points to an evolution of better and better gun control. However, when an act is repealed, the evolutionary chain is broken and "better" is not forthcoming. In that sense, gun control today is in an amoebic state.
Evolution, “a gradual development of something,” works through small incremental changes over long times. America, still young and very much the Wild West, will likely evolve out of a wholesale need for guns like Europe has. Until then--a long time, indeed--and while politicians are forever stuck on the spin cycle advocating, proposing, signing on, and voting for solutions--and then repealing--and while the public at-large hopes and prays, it's time "today" to protect the nation's school children by ensuring that guns are stopped at all entrances by metal detectors, scanners, trained security personnel, et. al. Many will argue that airport and government building security systems in schools is draconian, an extreme. But then so is the death of just one student. That, you cannot argue.
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