Be prepared is the Boy Scouts of America motto. In doing research for revising my “Safe Schools” book, I found that the National Threat Assessment Agency of the U.S. Secret Service said, that the one thing that schools with mass school shootings had in common was that they weren’t prepared.
It was 20 years ago that two students shot and killed thirteen other students, and wounded twenty-one in Columbine High School in Littleton, CO. Those of us who lived through it, will never forget the surprise and horror of the public. Nobody can count the number of school attacks that have been prevented or didn’t take place, but the pace of mass school shootings has spread to schools around the world and increased in frequency.
Mass shooting are defined as one with four or more casualties. Through April 10, 2019 eighty incidents were recorded in the United States with at least 103 people killed and 284 wounded. In 2019 there were 340 mass shootings — an average of nearly one a day — with at least 373 deaths and 1,347 wounded. The Washington Post calculated earlier this month that in schools alone, in the years since Columbine, more than 223,000 children have been exposed to gun violence during classroom hours.
Educators, students and parents can’t be blasé, with the attitude, “it can’t happen here”. School violence can and has taken place anywhere and everywhere. It has occurred in rural, suburban, private and parochial schools as well on Native America reservations. And in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where twenty-six 6 and 7 year-olds and their instructors lives were taken. It has taken place in thirty-three states. No community is exempt!
There was a time when federal lawmakers were sickened by the violence and acted. In 1994, Congress passed a law banning assault weapons. But the statue expired 10 years later. Since then, the government has done almost nothing. Federal laws now largely protect the firearms industry from lawsuits. And through it all, political and religious leaders send “their thoughts and prayers” to the parents, wounded and survivors.
School violence can and has taken place anywhere. Educators, parents and law enforcement need to work to PREVENT their occurrence rather than REACT after school violence has taken place.
More about this in the coming weeks and months. Mark my website, www.schargel.com as one of your favorites.