September was a brutal month for kids, parents and teachers as school safety threats lit up social media, sending panic across the nation.
According to The New York Times, “more than 700 children and teenagers, including at least one fourth-grader, have been arrested and accused of making violent threats against schools in at least 45 states” in the weeks following the mass shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia.
Chicago-area arrests occurred in Elgin, Tinley Park, Glendale Heights and Joliet.
And yet, if the horror caused by a real mass shooting isn’t enough to compel our federal lawmakers to come together to enact stronger, more effective gun control, it’s doubtful much, if anything, will be done about the terror caused by threats.
Instead of requiring background checks for all gun ownership, instead of mandating that every state to have secure firearms storage laws, instead of reauthorizing the temporary 10-year assault weapons ban imposed by President Clinton in 1994, instead of erring on the side of human life and safety for all, instead of doing the right thing, the sane thing, the responsible thing, the thing that many other nations have already done, instead…
- We install metal detectors and professionals to work those metal detectors.
- We continue to put the onus for physical safety on the victims, or potential victims, which is all of us.
- We continue to compile lists of accidental shootings, suicides by firearms and mass murders that happened because weapons fell into the wrong hands.
- We have no choice but to treat any social media threat or warning as authentic.
- We make teachers take on the responsibilities of psychologist so that they might identify which of their 30 to 90-plus students each year might have access to such a weapon and might have the potential to become a killer.
- We turn to administrators and school board officials to assume the responsibilities of public safety professionals and adjudicators.
- We make other children responsible for ratting out the intentions and homelife problems of their peers.
- We criminalize pranks and threats that, in another set of circumstances, could be construed as childish behavior.
- We make an adolescent jokester a felon whose “dumb mistake” sets the course for their future.
- We make every student practice Code Red drills long before they can even comprehend that horror might be on the other side of their classroom door.
- We malign the mentally ill and throw mass murderers into that mix, dismissing all of it as something that is simply beyond our control.
- We allow the states to decide safety policy, enabling potential killers living in a stricter state to simply cross a border and buy a weapon.
- We allow individuals to assemble arsenals that seem all too easily accessed by others, including their own children.
- We scope out restaurant, stadium and theater exits as well as develop on-the-fly escape plans should our night out become a statistical nightmare
- We debate the risks of attending a parade or church service, and then keep a careful watch on doorways, rooftops, parking lots, etc.
- We quietly weigh the risks of allowing our children to make new friends because we’re not sure if the friend’s home has weapons.
- We quietly suspect and judge others who look like they might have the potential to become dangerous.
- We finance the aftermath of violence, mobilizing police, counselors, state’s attorneys, hospitals, insurance companies, cleanup crews, construction companies and lawyers.
- We install ramps for survivors, watch health insurance costs rise, pay overtime for police, and wonder how broken hearts and broken families can ever be mended.
- We package the ubiquitous “thoughts and prayers” with a “what are you gonna do?” shrug and move on to the next horrible thing.
- We dismiss everyone’s right to live without fear and defer to the right of gun lovers to act on theirs.
And, we simply continue to live like this. The lucky ones, anyway.
Donna Vickroy is an award-winning reporter, editor and columnist who worked for the Daily Southtown for 38 years. She can be reached at donnavickroy4@gmail.com.
