If nothing significant results from the tragic mass shooting in Sante Fe, Texas, we will have doubled down on tragedy. This is what we have become.
Santa Fe was the fourth deadliest mass shooting at a U.S. public school in history. Ten innocent people, on campus to teach and learn, were instead singled out and gunned down. A few months ago it was 17 murdered in Parkland, Fla.
It’s been nearly 20 years since the shockingly heinous prototype. That’s when 13 were shot and killed at Columbine High in Colorado. Two trench-coated students with hidden weapons opened up. Sante Fe eerily mirrored Columbine.
We have, in effect, learned nothing other than more familiarity with “thoughts-and-prayers” clichés, mourning optics and official pledges to make schools safer while still venerating the usual suspects’ 21st century take on what Second Amendment militia context means. Articulate Parkland students can only do so much.
What’s particularly disheartening and disillusioning is that Santa Fe’s school district had an “active shooter” plan that included two armed officers on duty at the school. Santa Fe High was considered a “hardened target”–with more hardening on the way when it would ultimately arm teachers and staff under Texas’ school marshal program. They were doing everything they could.
But they were not doing everything that should be done. Sante Fe, nearly two decades removed from Columbine and three months after Parkland, is merely a murderous microcosm of where we still are. Today’s Exhibit A-wful. It’s a product of these politically dysfunctional, NRA-fealty times.
This country has to get away from the zero-sum approach to serious problems such as gun rights and wrongs and the bumper-sticker memes that pass for debate arguments. As in: “Yeah, raising the legal age to buy a gun is really going to prevent mass shootings. Yeah, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines will totally solve the problem. Yeah, more background checks will work wonders. Enforce the laws we have. Next question.”
Here’s the rationale that should carry the day. No single measure will solve this existential fault line–or any other societal problem. But collectively they can at the very least mitigate matters. They can make it more difficult for more unhinged people to get their hands on murder weapons. They can save some lives. Isn’t that a worthwhile goal? But, yes, banning assault weapons for anyone who’s not a cop or a soldier should still be a no-brainer.
But let’s not forget this. None of these school murderers, including Sandy Hooks’ Adam Lanza, operated in a vacuum. They lived at home. They sent signals. Some wore trench coats to school regardless of the weather. They planted red flags with their internet searches and social media postings. Parental oversight–including the foster variety–can’t be an oxymoron.
“If you see something, say something.” It has to be more than a New York subway reminder.