This particular topic gets me like no other. I have two elementary aged school children and I could not be more relieved that their school has been built within the last five years. Significant safety measures were incorporated into the design that were not needed 20 years ago. It is RIDICULOUS that it has come to this. It is also ridiculous that my son came home upset last year after a lockdown drill. With his ADHD, he had difficulty keeping quiet while all the kids were huddled together in the class bathroom, and the teacher got on him for it. How TF is he supposed to keep quiet if that is a real situation and he is a scared seven year old? It is INSANE, all of it. I have friends that live in England and they think that America is batshit crazy. I’m not gonna argue with them.
I also think about 9/11. A terrorist plot occurs, Americans die, and we respond by spending massive amounts of money in TSA efforts and ultimately going to war. It’s forever etched in our consciousness as a nation. Now travelers are required to take off shoes, put everything we own through an scanner and dump out water bottles before entering an airport terminal. (Which is fine by me.) Then you think about Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Uvalde and others… kids keep dying in school as a result of weapons of war. Our response as a nation? Oh well. Guess there’s nothing we can do. Better hope that the security guards don’t run away. Teach your kids that it’s statistically unlikely to happen to them. Or maybe give our teachers guns? Yeah, that’s the ticket.
Every day I see Veterans with trauma. Last week it was a guy who was almost killed in an IED explosion, except for the fact that he was thrown out of the vehicle. Everyone else died. He’ll probably have PTSD for the rest of his life, wondering why his friends died and he lived. School shootings are not a different type of trauma. Except they are, because our kids did not sign up and get paid to go to war. They just go to school.
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