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Arming School Personnel: We Can’t Do This to Our Kids (or Our Teachers)

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Sometimes, I have a view in to PTSD that I haven’t ever seen before. Generally, at this point in my life, it’s a pretty distanced view, and for that I am grateful.

As I was getting ready to take the dogs for a walk this morning, I was putting my shoes and socks on and having to contend with Chivito to keep possession of both socks. He loves nothing more than watching me separate a pair of socks and waiting until I begin to put the first one on and my attention is diverted so he can snatch the other sock and run away with it to a corner of the room. As I chased him to retrieve it, I was suddenly reminded of something I used to muse on as a kid.

Is it better to put both socks on first and then start on your shoes, or one sock and one shoe first and then the other sock/shoe combo?


Seems fairly philosophical, except that, as a kid, when you’re living in fear, it’s not. It’s practical. I always chose one sock and one shoe and then the other pair and here is why – if I got interrupted halfway through and had to run, at least one foot would be entirely covered. If I did both socks first and had to run, those socks wouldn’t protect my feet for long as I ran away, but, I reasoned, I could always give the bare foot a break by hopping on the foot with the shoe for a little bit if necessary.

These days I can look back at the kid who thought that way most mornings and smile with compassion. I no longer feel that sharp spike of adrenaline in my chest as I imagine what she was afraid of. I know I’m safe these days. I am filled with appreciation for that little girl’s survival skills and for the fact that I made it through that time and am no longer forced to think that way.

I wonder what else that little girl could have done with her time and intellect if she hadn’t been so afraid all the time, so focused on fight or flight, and it makes me determined to do what I can to keep other kids from living that way.

This is a pretty ham-handed segue in to a discussion about gun control, but here you have it: this is one of the reasons I find it unconscionable that there are lawmakers considering adding more guns to the landscape of our kids’ lives. Between active-shooter drills and actual mass shootings in schools, churches, and other public places, our kids are traumatized, and we are letting it happen. Consider this post by a teacher named Danae Ray (taken from Facebook postings made by her FB friends – I don’t know her):


“Today in school we practiced our active shooter lockdown. One of my first graders was scared and I had to hold him. Today is his birthday. He kept whispering “When will it be over?” into my ear. I kept responding “Soon” as I rocked him and tried to keep his birthday crown from stabbing me.
I had a mix of 1-5 graders in my classroom because we have a million tests that need to be taken. My fifth grader patted the back of the 2nd grader huddled next to him under a table. A 3rd grade girl cried silently and clutched the hand of her friend. The rest of the kids sat quietly (casket quiet) and stared aimlessly in the dark.
As the”intruder” tried to break into our room twice, several of them jumped, but remained silently. The 1st grader in my lap began to pant and his heart was beating out of his chest, but he didn’t make a peep. Eventually, the principal announced the lockdown was lifted.
I turned on the lights, removed the table from in front of the door, opened the blinds and announced “Let’s get back to work. ” I was greeted with blank faces… petrified faces…. tear stained faces… confused faces… elated faces…and one “bitch REALLY?” face.
This is teaching in 2018. And no… I don’t want a gun.” #teacherlyfe

Now consider those children coming to school every morning, passing through metal detectors staffed by men and women with guns. Think about what it must take to walk through the halls of school with armed personnel in your periphery. Think about what it might feel like to be a child of color, whose family history might be peppered with stories of police officers using undue force. Imagine how incredibly difficult it might be to focus on what your teacher is saying or relax enough to joke with your friends or cut up in the lunchroom.

Think about what it would be like, as you get older and begin to draw conclusions based on subtle societal cues, and you notice that your teachers are working two or three jobs just to afford their rent and your classmates are holding bake sales and car washes to raise money for field trips or band uniforms, but the government seems to have plenty of money for school police officers and ammunition and bullet proof vests. What would your conclusions be about where our priorities lie?

Human beings can’t learn when they are in fear-mode. They can only react. Schools need to be a place of learning. They need to be safe places to experiment, and they should be places of joy. In order to create the best conditions for creative thought, problem-solving, and collaboration, we need teachers who are not afraid and who feel as though their efforts are appreciated and well-rewarded. We need students who are well-nourished, relaxed, and who feel safe and optimistic.

Banning assault weapons (or whatever you choose to call them – I know there is some petty argument about whether bump stocks or AR-15s should be called “assault weapons” – but I’m clear on the fact that these are not simple hunting rifles unless you’re hunting human beings) is not an affront to anyone’s Second Amendment rights. Banning assault weapons is simply a way to incrementally increase the safety and security of every single person in this country. Is it a perfect solution? No. That doesn’t exist. Is it a key part of the puzzle? Yes. It is. And if we can take that step toward reducing the amount of fear our children have as they simply get dressed in the morning to go to school, it’s the least we can do.

#guncontrolnow #notonemore #neveragain

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There, I’ve Finally Said It. No More Guns.

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I just don’t understand the appeal of having a gun. I didn’t really grow up with them, although my mom’s first boyfriend after she divorced my dad and her second husband both loved them. They each took us kids out shooting in the rural areas of Oregon, aiming at tin cans on a log. I don’t remember much about it, to be honest, whether I was afraid of the kick of the pistol or if the sound bothered my ears. I have no idea whether I got a rush seeing the can jump off of the log when it was hit or even if I ever hit one. I don’t recall any conversations about where the guns were kept or if they were locked. I do remember my stepdad’s sunny office at the back of our house sporting a box of bullets in the windowsill, but I don’t recall being afraid of them, even though I was sometimes afraid of him.

We didn’t grow up hunting. Dad never really talked about it, but I know he had a gun for a while. I don’t think I ever saw it or touched it or even thought about it. Nobody in my family ever talked about needing one for protection, even when it was just us kids and Mom living alone.

So maybe I’m missing something. Maybe I don’t have some piece of the puzzle that I would need in order to really feel strongly about “my 2nd Amendment right.” But, frankly, I am more than willing to forego it altogether as long as the shooting stops. As long as I never have to see another story about a toddler accidentally shooting himself or his mother. As long as I don’t have to hear about teenagers playing Russian Roulette on a dare and someone ends up dead. As long as I don’t have to hear that there is another guy loose in some town somewhere shooting people for no apparent reason. I’ll give it up. And I’ll ask you to give yours up, too.

Because here’s what I see. In our current circumstances in this country, when there are more people living in poverty than there maybe ever have been, when there is extreme racial and gender inequality, against a backdrop of loud ranting on social media and radio and television shows from people who freely persecute and alienate other people, we can’t afford the 2nd Amendment. We can’t keep our guns if we aren’t willing to treat each other like human beings.  It’s too expensive. The cost is too high.

I have no scientific evidence to back this up, but I have a strong belief that simply owning a gun lowers the threshold for violence. That, all things considered, if you have two people with similar personalities and tendencies, one with a gun and one without, and they each get into a fight with someone – the kind of fight that really pushes your buttons, makes you see red – the person with the gun will be more likely to escalate to violence than the person without one. I believe that someone who owns a gun is more likely to use it to settle a score, to make their feelings known, to end the battle once and for all, than the person who doesn’t have a gun handy is to throw a punch, use a knife, or find some other weapon. I believe that there is something impersonal about using a gun that allows us to feel detached from the act of violence in a significant way, such that we don’t have to consider what it might mean for us. If we have to stop and think about getting into a fistfight with someone we are arguing with, we have to wonder how badly we’ll get hurt in the scuffle. But if we have a gun and the other person doesn’t, it’s an easier decision. The effort it takes to pull a trigger just isn’t the same as the effort it takes to physically assault someone.

And before you point out that I just made an excellent case for everyone to own a gun, just stop. Because the above scenario is only for arguments and road rage and innocent victims killed by an enraged Uber driver in Kalamazoo.

The idea that we would all be safer if we all owned guns is belied by the statistics on accidental shootings. According to the Washington Post, in 2015, an average of one person per week was shot in the US by a toddler using an unsecured weapon. In the first six weeks of 2016, nearly 350 people have been shot in accidental shootings. That is more than five people per day, shot accidentally. Nobody can protect themselves from an accidental shooting by using a gun. I don’t care how much of a ninja you are.

And, for the record, I also reject the argument that what we have here is a mental illness issue. To be honest with you (and, again, I am no expert, I’m not a certified mental health professional, so this is ‘just’ my deeply held conviction), I don’t think that ANYONE who sets out to shoot a bunch of random people in a school or movie theater or from an overpass is someone I would call NOT mentally ill. I think that in order to want to inflict serious bodily harm on a group of people you don’t even know, by definition, means that you have a mental illness. Unfortunately, we don’t tend to know that until after it’s too late and people are dead.

We could piecemeal this situation with background checks and laws against certain people owning guns – violent criminals, those with a restraining order, people undergoing treatment for mental illnesses – but we won’t cover the people who just snap. The people like Robert Dear and Jason Dalton who were “quiet neighbors” and “loners” without any real red flags going up will continue to elude us. We also won’t capture the accidental shootings that happen at the rate of 5 A DAY in this country. And so we need to ask ourselves whether the need to protect the rights of regular citizens to shoot at cans and deer and ducks a few times a month is worth it. We need to weigh gun enthusiasts’ right to recreation against the rights of the rest of us to not get shot randomly. There is no other item of leisure that compares in its lethality to that of a gun, and I, for one, am willing to forego my right to bear arms so that other members of society can live without fear of harm or death at the hands of someone who was, up until now, a “responsible gun owner,” but they snapped, or they forgot to lock up the gun, or they got pissed off because the other driver didn’t signal that lane change.

As a nation, I would hope that we have progressed past the point of needing to arm ourselves against our own government. I think that we have come far enough and developed tools enough to band together and make our will known without worrying about soldiers coming to our door to force us to do something we don’t want to do. Besides, if our government was truly determined to quiet us, they have weapons much worse than guns and your personal stash of firearms won’t do much to stop them if the drones come.

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I Will Speak His Name

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It happened again. And there has been much acknowledgment that it keeps happening – we are killing each other at an unprecedented rate in this country and it is overwhelmingly sad and frustrating and I wish that we could find a different way to talk about it because, clearly, the way we have been approaching it isn’t working.

I popped in to my book club for an hour last night and, even though the topic was the book of historical fiction that we had all read, it quickly bled into discussing the shooting at Umpqua Community College. Someone noted that one positive aspect of all of these things – wars and terrorist attacks and mass shootings – is that it rallies communities, that we all notice each others’ humanity and come together to support each other.  But I couldn’t quite agree.  The other common aspect of all of those things that ostensibly bring communities together is that they are united against a common enemy. In war it is the other country, after 9/11 it was “terrorists,” after yesterday, it is either mentally ill people or mentally ill people with guns or, in some people’s minds, simply people with guns.  So while this may feel like solidarity, it is false, because while we may truly be recognizing the humanity of those who are suffering the same way we are, we are setting up a false dichotomy and altogether failing to recognize the humanity of the “other,” whomever we have decided they are.

The fact is, we are all in this together. How much must a person be suffering to pick up a weapon and shoot scores of people? How much pain must someone be in to want to inflict that much pain on others?

I have seen many posts on social media today from people and organizations vowing not to mention the name of the person responsible for yesterday’s shooting, and I can’t help but feel that that is part of the problem. His act was horrific and deplorable, to be certain, but we cannot deny his humanity. Pretending that there is an “Us” and a “Them” is simply perpetuating the problem. The fact is, Chris Mercer was one of us, but he didn’t know it and I doubt he felt that way. So often, we hear the stories of shooters in these incidents described as “loners,” “quirky,” “angry,” and “isolated.” In other words, not part of a community.

I absolutely believe that stricter gun laws are a vital necessity in this country. I have said that time and time again. But I also think that until we recognize the equal human rights of every person, to dignity and health care (including mental health care) and education, we are destined to see this repeat again and again. Uniting in the wake of tragedies like this, or against a common enemy is not a positive reaction, it is a reaction rooted in fear and scarcity. Coming together to fight AGAINST something drives us into a corner and forces us to erect walls. It is only a matter of time before those boundaries are breached, and being united in fear is a tenuous thing. It is high time we started uniting in purpose, finding a reason to include each and every person in our community and work toward a positive future for us ALL. Refusing to speak the name of someone who is hurting so intensely that they could plan and execute a horrific act like a mass shooting is just another way of burying our heads in the sand. We need to acknowledge the humanity of us all, recognize that we are all entitled to be part of the community of people who deserve happiness and liberty and that so long as we ignore and marginalize individuals out of fear, we are setting ourselves up for more acts of pain like this one.

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