The Washington Post reports that since the 1999 Columbine High School (Colorado) gun massacre that left 12 students and one teacher dead, there has been gun violence at 298 schools with a total enrollment of 278,000 students. In addition to the 157 students, teachers and school personnel killed, and 351 injured, an untold number of students who witnessed the killings and/or barricaded themselves in classrooms have suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder as well as other psychological disorders.

Education Week reports that from 2018 through the recent Oxford High School (Michigan) killings, there have been 87 school shootings in which at least one person was injured or killed. To better understand this violence, consider the following:

By the numbers — With a population of just under 140 million in 1945, there were approximately 47 million firearms in American homes, one such weapon for every three people. Today, with a population of 331 million, civilians in this country own approximately 400 million guns (including at least 20 million military-style assault rifles), almost all of them legally acquired.

In 2020, Americans purchased 22.8 million firearms. At this rate of increase, the civilian population will have nearly 500 million guns in 2025 and a billion by 2048. John Densley, chair of the Department of Criminal Justice at Metropolitan University in Minnesota, notes the math is simple: “More guns increases the likelihood that guns fall into the hands of kids.” And some of these children will bring those weapons to school.

Unlocked and loaded — On the basis of their survey research, Deborah Azrael, of the Harvard School of Public Health, and her colleagues estimated that in 2015, approximately 7% of U.S. children (4.6 million) resided in homes where at least one firearm was stored loaded and unlocked. This estimate is more than twice as high as in 2002, the last time a nationally representative survey was conducted.

A Washington Post study of 105 school shootings committed by minors between 1999 and 2018 in which the origin of the gun was determined found that in 84 cases, the firearms were not secured and were taken from the child’s home or the home of a relative or friend.

Irresponsible and not responsible — In early December, a St Louis second-grader brought a loaded handgun to school to show classmates. Police department spokesperson Evita Caldwell stated that “due to circumstances of the child finding the weapon in a presumed secured lock box, and the child’s intent to just show off the weapon, no criminal charges [presumably against the parents] are being sought at this time.”

Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31 of this year, there have been 259 unintentional shootings by children resulting in 104 deaths and 168 injuries. In a typical year, one of every four of these shootings is by a child 5 years of age or younger. One of every four victims of these tragedies are also in that age category. Intent to inflict harm is not a prerequisite for a gun related injury or death in the home or at school.

Currently, 23 states and the District of Columbia have laws that hold gun owners accountable for keeping their firearms secure from minors. However, these laws are rarely enforced. In only four of the aforementioned 84 school shootings when the firearm was taken by a child from his home, or the home of a relative or friend, was the adult owner of the weapon criminally punished.

A Washington Post analysis concluded that if the only change made after the 1999 Columbine massacre was to prevent children from obtaining firearms “more than half of the country’s school shootings wouldn’t have happened.”

Blaming the good guys — The prosecutor handling the Michigan school killings stated that school officials (in addition to the shooter’s parents) could also face charges as “a lot could have been done different.” We have come to a point in the ongoing school gun killings when a teacher’s job description now tacitly includes monitoring students’ emotional health while school administrators must be competent security professionals. Both expectations are unrealistic and absurd.

Jonathan Metzl, director of the Department of Medicine, Health and Society at Vanderbilt University, states that “trained psychologists are no better than chance at predicting which of their patients will commit violence.” While therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists work with a relatively small number of patients, teachers and school counselors deal with hundreds of students, their “coming-of-age” emotional difficulties now exacerbated by COVID.

Chris Dorn, senior analyst for Save Havens International, a non-profit campus safety organization, notes that “educators aren’t designed to look for danger, to look for the next active shooter. Their job is to educate and nurture kids.”

In the aftermath of the Michigan school killings, Oakland County (where Oxford High School is located) Sheriff Michael Bouchard said at least 100 threats or threatening media posts (of more violence) had emerged. He noted the number of false threats was “overrunning our resources.” If one of those threats had turned into a school shooting, no doubt Sheriff Bouchard and his officers would have been blamed for not apprehending the perpetrator beforehand.

Because so few parents are held criminally accountable for their children’s access to firearms — and for gun manufacturers it’s business as usual — teachers, counselors, school administrators, and to a lesser extent, law enforcement, have become the primary scapegoats.

Speaking of school shootings, James Densley of Metropolitan University in Minnesota stated: “We have really failed this generation of kids … we’ve put this problem on their backs. We’ve said you have to go through active shooter drills and metal detectors and have police in your schools in order to keep safe, because we’ve failed to act on other things that would keep guns out of school in the first place.”

At the top of the “other things” list is the increasing number of firearms. Historian Andrew McKevitt of Louisiana Tech University argues the gun violence that plagues this nation is grounded in “American gun capitalism with its largely unrestricted production, distribution, marketing and sale of civilian firearms unequaled anywhere in the world.”

The Washington Post estimated that schools are spending $2.7 billion a year on security measures. Students still aren’t safe from gun violence — and they never will be.

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George J. Bryjak lives in Bloomingdale.

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Sources

“Americans own nearly half the world’s guns in civilian hands: survey” (2018) Reuters, June 18, www.reuters.com

Azrael, D. (2018) “Firearm storage in gun-owning households with children: Results of 2015 survey,” Journal of Urban Health, May 10, https://link.springer.com

Bella, T. (2021) “Copycat threats after Oxford High shooting cause dozens of Michigan schools to close,” Washington Post, December 3, www.washingtonpost.com

Bella, T. (2021) “A second-grader showed off a loaded gun at recess, police say. Then classmates told a teacher,” The Washington Post, December 7, www.washingtonpost.com

Caldwell, T. and A. Watts (2021) “Michigan school shooting could have been prevented given warning signs, prosecutors says,” CNN, December 7, www.cnn.com

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McKevitt, A. (2021) “Gun capitalism – not ‘ghost guns” or other trends – is to blame for gun violence,” The Washington Post, December 5, www.washingtonpost.com

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