As an educator, I am intensely concerned with school shootings. I am hopeful that something tragic will never happen in my school district, but I’m not naïve enough to think it could never happen. What frustrates me immensely is the lack of action on trying to curb school shootings. It seems to me that what happened at Sandy Hook should have been the watershed moment, but if a whole bunch of murdered 1st graders can’t spur any action, then I am not sure what will.

I know that the gun lobby and those who seem to live and die by the 2nd Amendment like to say that the issue isn’t guns (the whole guns don’t kill people, people kill people mantra). In my opinion, the guns sure do make it easy. Sometimes a false equivalency is used (if we outlaw guns, should we also outlaw knives and cars since they can be used to kill people). Well, my response to that is twofold: first, knives and cars have purposes, and their purposes are not killing even though they can be used for that; guns, however, have only one purpose: killing. Second, I suggest we go ahead and outlaw guns and then see if we start to see a major uptick in school stabbings or school car attacks, and if so, then we can either outlaw knives and cars, too, or we can go back to allowing guns.

In all seriousness, I wish the powers that be would do something, anything, beyond offering thoughts and prayers. I have ideas, but my ideas are not unique (outlaw assault-style weapons, universal background checks, mandatory waiting periods are some) and the gun-loving folks seem to balk at these ideas, saying it infringes on their 2A rights. I guess I don’t see how that works — you can still own guns, just not any gun you want, and you have to have some requirements to qualify.

Sadly, it is just a matter of time until the next school shooting happens. They’re very much an American experience. Maybe someday they’ll be a thing of the past.