On Wednesday evening (October 25th), an individual attacked a Bowling Alley and a Bar & Grille. The individual used an AR-15, which has no other use than quickly and efficiently killing humans, to shoot a wide variety of innocent people. Currently, 18 people are identified as having lost their lives. 18 people who won’t be coming home. 18 people who won’t be hugging their family members. Numerous people won’t be sharing stories, laughs, or hugs with those 18 people.
Thursday, news was that the perpetrator had not been found yet. Androscoggin County has been placed in a “shelter in place”. Lots of schools and businesses are closed. My school is also closed.
We’ve been practicing active shooter drills for decades. We’ve ingrained into students that someone could show up and shoot up their school. We surreptitiously essentially told teachers that we expect them to be prepared to lay down their lives for our children.
A teacher in Virginia was shot by a six-year-old. The teacher is trying to sue the school district for negligence. The school district’s response is that this is covered under “workman’s compensation” since the event was, essentially part of the job description. (Yes, in reality, I understand that this is a lot of legal wrangling to prevent the school district from paying out millions of dollars, but the underlying argument still rings to the expectation that this could happen to teachers.)
I realized that my own reaction was very different than many others. I have lived a different life. For me, this has been somewhat of a constant since 9/11. Having lived and worked in Dearborn, MI, we were under constant threat of violence. I can’t remember the number of videos that I’ve seen of “patriots” driving around Dearborn threatening “those foreigners”. Nor can I remember the number of threats to come to Dearborn to do harm. (On October 12th, there was a threat to “come to Dearborn and attack Palestinians”).
Some of my friends and former students immigrated to the United States from places where wars were common and ongoing. So their lived experience was fear of losing loved ones.
How many school shootings have we had (58 as of the moment I’m typing this)? How many mass shootings have been in the U.S. this year alone (587 as of the moment I’m typing this)?
America is pretty much alone in the type of violence. We could do something. We actually had a ban on assault rifles at one point, but Congress let it sunset. Jared Golden, one of five Democrats to vote against banning assault rifles is now coming out in support of an assault rifle ban. We shouldn’t have to wait for enough Congress people to experience firsthand the pain of attacks by an assault rifle in order to pass legislation. We can vote for representatives who will take this issue seriously.
It’s beyond time that we take action. Get out and vote for sanity.
