How the Gun-Crisis Has Turned America’s Schools into Places of Death and Trauma

By Marsha Owens — GUEST COLUMN

Well, damn. What the hell took so long? Another school shooting today. It’s been awhile. Haven’t you missed hearing about thoughts, prayers, guns don’t kill people/people kill people, NRA, the 2 ndAmendment, grief counselors, parents grief-stricken, 14-, 15-, 16-year olds, two dead, four gravely injured? But this time something will change, you say. Sure it will. Why will “this time” be different? Will elected officials grow a backbone, decide to value human life more than their seats in the statehouses, in Congress, in the White House? We can say the words over and over- never again, never again, this time will be different. . .except it won’t.

People have marched and voted. People have written letters and written books. People have cried and buried children. People have seen death up close and personal, and they will never again be the same. But of one thing we can be sure. . .another school shooting will happen, maybe tomorrow, the next day or the day after, before Christmas, before spring break, after Memorial Day.

School shootings are nothing new. They have been happening in the U.S. for decades, centuries really. But let’s focus on the 20 thcentury. Google Olean NY (1974), Greenwood SC (1988) Littleton CO (1999), and so…