Thoughts on Sandy Hook

It goes without saying, given the outpouring of grief since Friday, that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary is unfathomable. I think that it is horrible for any reasonable person to ponder, but it especially hits home if you are a parent. You can’t help it, but one of the first things that came to mind was an image of my own daughter, with a mix of terror and incomprehension on her face, facing the barrel of a semi-automatic assault weapon that only has a place on the battlefield or with a SWAT unit. The only solace, if this is any, is that with that firepower it is quick. We can discuss mental illness and these shooters all day long (and better intervention protocols for potential shooters who show signs of mental deterioration is a must), but I think it does come down to, as Springsteen sang in “Nebraska,” “I guess that there’s just a meanness in this world.” We can dress it up in psychological explanations if we want, but here is where religious people have a better grasp than others. Evil simply exists. But should we be arming evil with assault weapons?

As an educator myself, I was particularly struck by the heroism of the staff of Sandy Hook. I often get irritated when the word “hero” is overused in our society. Often people get labeled “hero” when they are doing what they are supposed (or being paid) to do. But these heroic women went above and beyond. The principal and school psychologist who confronted the shooter in the hallway armed with nothing but the determination to protect their kids. Teacher Janet Vollmer, who after barricading her classroom door, had the presence of mind to herd her students to the back of the room behind bookcases and keep them calm by reading them stories as gunfire echoed outside. The other teacher (I forget her name), who similarly hid her kids in a closet and kept them quiet by constantly reassuring them and making close eye contact, because as she said in an interview, “I wanted the last thing that they saw to be me instead of the gun.” Many other teachers who, risking their own lives, went into the halls to grab as many students as possible and get them to safety. Special note must be taken of 27 year old teacher Victoria Soto, who hid her 1st grade students in closets and cabinets, and when he entered her room she tried to tell the gunman that her kids were in the gym, and then threw herself into a barrage of bullets when he opened fire on the huddled children in the closet. Teacher Anne Murphy made a similar sacrifice, positioning herself between her students and the bullets that took her life. Soto and Murphy saved lives with quick thinking, tried to save more, and gave theirs protecting them.

I sit in a sometimes awkward position of being an educator and a (moderate) conservative. I say this because there has been a war of words against educators (and public sector workers in general) from the Right. It is particularly vicious on talk radio. (And unlike many critics of talk radio, I actually do listen regularly). Honestly, I agree with some of the complaints. I proudly live in a right to work state and do not belong to a union because I disagree with some of their politics and how they protect the bad teachers along with the good. But words from the Right go beyond just disagreeing with policy, as they often question our basic competence (without understanding, or willfully ignoring, all of the issues involved in our troubled school system, many of them not teacher-related), integrity and dedication as a profession. The next time Limbaugh or Gallagher want to take verbal shots at teachers, it would do them some good to remember Victoria Soto.

Another thing, it is a myth that teachers are all, or mostly, on the Left. I can tell you from personal experience from working in two large high schools, the political leanings of my colleagues are really split down the middle. I have just as many conservative colleagues as I do liberal ones. Granted, I do live in Texas. Also contrary to popular belief, most of my colleagues are very professional about not allowing their personal political beliefs into the classroom. This whole indoctrination complaint from the Right…I just don’t see it. At least where I teach. I pride myself that even though I teach AP U.S. History and we are constantly discussing and debating political and historical issues, my students do not have any idea what my personal beliefs are. I do what an educator should do, and that is play devil’s advocate to get them to think and defend their positions, whatever those may be. In fact, it is a running joke with my students throughout the year as they try and figure out which way I lean or vote. I like that they cannot figure it out, because I teach them to think critically about both sides of the spectrum. Even at the university level, where it is supposedly worse, I had some notable conservative professors. Having graduated from the University of Texas law school, don’t tell me they are only bastions of liberal thought when you have Lino Graglia teaching law classes.

Guns, guns, guns. The 2nd Amendment is only 27 words long (the number of victims in the massacre, by the way, if you include the shooter’s mother whom he shot at home that morning). As a history teacher and student, I do appreciate the importance of the amendment. It is no coincidence that it is listed second only to the most basic freedoms of speech and religion. We won our independence from Britain because we had an armed citizenry, since there was no real professional army. Quite simply, we would not have become independent when we did but for guns owned by lots of people. From the revolutionary beginning on, the second amendment has been sincerely viewed by many reasonable people as one of the most crucial protections against tyranny, the argument being that an armed citizenry keeps the government in check. These beliefs run deep in our history, all the way back. There is some credence to that argument. But…

I can no longer see how we can reasonably allow semi-automatic weapons such as the Bushmaster used by this shooter to be purchased by regular citizens without a real need for them. I think that we can start the conversation at these semi-automatic military grade assault weapons and the rapid load magazines (such as the 100 round magazine the Aurora shooter used, and that thank God eventually jammed). I sympathize with the argument that armed citizens can be the first line of defense against these shooters (in fact, here in my city, the other day someone opened fire in a parking lot with a handgun and an off duty police officer who happened to be there shot and wounded the gunman, who did not hit anybody). I read one conservative commentator claim that it would have been better if the principal of Sandy Hook had been trained with weapons and had a weapon in her office. Maybe so. Things would also have been different if the shooter didn’t have a semi-automatic weapon at his disposal (and really, there is very little “semi” about it when you can fire several rounds per second). A well placed shot to the head from the principal with a handgun would have been as effective as if she had emerged from her office armed like Rambo.

My point here is that I am not for complete gun bans. I am a gun owner myself. And there are simply too many guns already in circulation to put that cat back into the bag. Also, there is some merit in allowing concealed handguns. Or perhaps allowing a few people on the campus of a school, after extensive training, to have a handgun in a secure location. Much like how they allow pilots to have guns in the cockpit now. That would have helped on 9/11 against terrorists wielding boxcutters. I feel better knowing that on my very large high school campus, we have two armed police officers there most of the time. Before Friday, nobody thought that might also be necessary at elementary schools.

ABOVE: The Bushmaster semi-automatic model that was used at Sandy Hook. Should most any American citizen be able to buy this?

After Clinton signed the assault weapons ban in the 90’s (and which expired in 2004), over several years, the number of those weapons in circulation did start to decline. So we should reasonably start there. Assault weapons and high-volume magazines simply are not necessary, and these attacks are increasing in both frequency and in ferocity. One of the common denominators is the availability and ease of purchase of these assault weapons and high volume ammo magazines. Hunters do not need assault weapons to kill deer, and there is no other reasonable explanation to own them. In most of the recent mass shootings, the weapons and ammunition were purchased legally (often over the internet). In the memory of Charlotte, Daniel, Olivia, Josephine, Ana, Dylan, Madeline, Catherine, Chase, Jesse, James, Grace, Emilie, Jack, Noah, Caroline, Jessica, Avielle, Benjamin, Allison, Ms. Soto, Ms. Sherlach, Ms. Rousseau, Ms. Murphy, Ms. Hochsprung, Ms. Davino ,and also Ms. Lanza, we can at least start there.