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When my colleague came to break the news that there had been a school shooting in my hometown, I first confirmed it wasn’t at my niece’s school. I made a call to my sister, who had seen kids pouring out of MCHS on her way to work, and confirmed the girls were safe. Then, after I had completed my check, it hit me.
I knew this space. I had walked those halls for four years. I knew where kids would sit before the first bell rang. Images flooded my mind. I have not had to live through it, but countless youth and children have, and I could see myself in the commons area sitting and chatting before class. I could see my nieces there, running from bullets.
The terror of it struck me.
In the wake of school shootings that happened in the 90’s, Marshall County schools took the guns away from their mascot, the Marshall, and moved to clear backpacks. Administrators took action. The action that seemed reasonable at the time. But a child still brought a gun to school and shot other children in the face.
When they took the guns away from the Marshall it was, of course, symbolic. As a student attending Marshall County at the time, I knew that this alone would not stop a shooter. We knew that clear backpacks would not stop a shooter.
Now in my thirties, listening to “Feminism is for Everybody” by bell hooks while driving for work, I’m confronted with the fact that we are all responsible for two deaths that happened most recently at Marshall.
We are complicit in the systems that support dominance and subordination, of which these acts of violence is one thread. There are no easy or quick answers and policy changes at school district levels will never be enough. There are systematic changes that have to happen throughout our nation.
Yet, the only course of action I have heard from so many legislators and pastors is prayer. I have prayed for the victims and all the people in the county. I will continue to pray and then I’ll get to work because there are preventative measures we can take. We must, in fact, take action if we wish to lower the prevalence of such things in our nation.
My suggestions include the following:
Call for a systematic analysis of what works to end violence in our nation.
This is bigger than school shootings. Our teen suicide rate is also on the rise. This is about violence across our nation. This is political. It has to be political because it will take political will and motivation and phone calls and messages. It will take this motivation next week and next month and in five years. It will take funding. Funding for measures to look intently at the problem and funding to implement programs and policies to address it.
Teach non-violence everywhere.
In your home, with your sons and daughters. In your classrooms and in your churches. Nonviolence education doesn’t just happen. It has to be incorporated into how you parent. A “spare the rod and spoil the child” philosophy doesn’t help our child explore how to solve problems without resorting to violence. Nonviolence education has to be incorporated into school and church curriculums. GreenDot is a community prevention and intervention model that was started at the University of Kentucky that has already seen positive results.
Recognize the connections between dominance and violence.
Violence is about power. Children and youth are often powerless. When children act out in violent ways they may be attempting to claim their power. We can empower our children and youth in productive ways. We can support youth as decision makers in their lives and in the systems in which they live. We can share power with our youth in incredible ways. This takes work and awareness of systems of power that are in place.
Be a responsible gun-owner and support common sense gun control.
I’m Kentuckian. I’ve lived here my whole life. I have guns in my home. I know there are people out there who own guns who shouldn’t and I think we can and should do a better job at regulating who can own guns. We should be demanding such legislation every day. But even if we enact better background checks today, our kids already have access to the guns already there: in our homes and in our neighbor’s homes.
That means we’ve got to be responsible with the guns that are out there too. We need to hold each other accountable for locking up our guns and keeping ammo separate. We have to teach responsible gun use. This includes hard conversations with our children about death and the reality of the consequences of using guns and resorting to violence.
There is not one of these things that will solve the problem completely.
It is more complex than that. It will take these four actions along with other actions (that you may think of as you read this article). Just because it is a lot of work doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. My hope is that we can look back in ten years and say, “We have really turned a curve in our nation’s history and children lived because of the action we took.” It will take concerted efforts on the part of the citizens and leaders of our nation. It will take your work and my work this week and a year from now and 5 years from now.
I genuinely want to extend my condolences and prayers to all of the families affected by the terror and loss of life from Tuesday’s shooting. I am grateful for the community holding and caring for each other in the aftermath. I am grateful for the first responders who rushed to the scene and for the teachers who went to the hospital with students, comforted students, and are continue to create a caring nurturing environment for children to heal in. #marshallstrong
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