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Missing the Target
Twenty years after the carnage at Columbine seared the image of mass school shootings into the national consciousness, and after several similar high profile shootings have occurred in other schools, one would hope that the nation had fashioned a comprehensive response to such tragedies.
But alas, here we are, two decades removed from the horror in Littleton, and the most that some folks can think to do is to arm teachers, as has just been approved in Florida, the site of the slaughter in Parkland last year. It’s something several other states have also allowed and which conservative politicians continue to push as the answer to the problem of mass murder.
Not to address the underlying mental and emotional health needs of young people, and not to limit the availability of high-powered weaponry. No, neither of those: rather, hopes, prayers, and more firepower in the hands of biology instructors and wrestling coaches.
Or perhaps English teachers, who apparently can be expected to interrupt their lesson about the proper way to diagram a sentence, or their exegetical treatment of Chaucer, so as to pop a few caps off in the next mass killer and save the day.
