It's 2018.
Columbine was almost 20 years ago, but here we are still dealing with the same tragedy over and over. It's a nightmare from which we can't wake up.
On Tuesday January 23 in the cafeteria of a Kentucky High School, a gunman opened fire on innocent bystanders, making this the 11th shooting to happen on a school campus this month. Two students were killed and 18 others injured.
If your first reaction to the death toll is "well that's not so bad," then you've proven the point exactly.
It doesn't even phase us anymore. This story barely made headlines and was quickly put on the back-burner to more interesting stories in the news.
Sadly, if the shooting isn't the caliber of Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, or Columbine, then it hardly gets a reaction. But what society is failing to realize is that for each of these communities and school districts, this IS their "Columbine". The fear and stress that this type of attack puts on a person is indescribable. To be the parent of a student who finds out there has been a shooting at their school or to be a teen who sees their best friend killed five feet away from them - there are just no words.
Even if the death toll isn't large, these are still people's lives that are being taken.
So this the new normal? Are students, teachers, and parents just supposed to accept that by going to school everyday they are taking their lives into their own hands?
Education should not be a risk.
"Gunfire ringing out in American schools used to be rare, and shocking. Now it seems to happen all the time," said Alan Blinder and Daniel Victor of The New York Times.
With all of the ridiculous things people choose to be outraged about in this hypersensitive age, school shootings somehow don't make the cut. It's as if there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it.
If a person brings a bomb on a plane, then we increase security at the gates to prevent the attack from happening again. If someone poisons Tylenol with cyanide then we triple seal the bottles to prevent tampering. So why is it that we've gone decades without a solution to this problem?
In my opinion, the answer can be summed up in three words: Politics, Money, and Pride. Or better yet, three letters: NRA.
We've put our politics and beliefs over the lives of our children and educators, and something has to give. Though after Sandy Hook, when even children were being shot to death in an elementary school and we did nothing productive about it except offer thoughts and prayers, that was the point of no return.
Sources
https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/23/us/kentucky-high-school-shooting/index.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/us/kentucky-school-shooting.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruYeBXudsds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw1RrmlrTtM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States