As parents in the United States, we see our children off to school each day not knowing if they will be educated or be shot. Yesterday saw the 18th school shooting in 2018 alone. There have been 290 since 2013. When a country cares more about allowing its citizens access to firearms—including high-capacity, military-style weapons—than protecting its children, it has failed its children.
My thoughts go out today to the community of Troutdale, Oregon, where a student and a suspected shooter are both dead after the later opened fire at Reynolds High School. When 27 people died after a school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut two years ago, ABC News reported that there had been 31 school shootings since the one in Columbine, Colorado in 1999. Now, we learn that there have been 74 school shootings since Newtown. How many is too many?
Another school shooting. Another school shooting, this time in New Mexico, where an 12-year-old boy on Tuesday sawed off a shotgun and shot two classmates, ages 12 and 13, before being restrained by a teacher. The classmates are alive, but one is in critical condition. Right after the Sandy Hook shootings, I wrote about some of
I hugged my son today, thinking of those who have lost theirs. It’s been one year since the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. One year — and yesterday, there was another, as a high school student in Colorado opened fire with a shotgun and incendiary devices and critically injured a fellow student.
Yesterday, I posted my column about the December 14th school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Today, I’m honored to bring you a guest post from my own mother, who had her own thoughts and offered to share them here. Some of our thoughts (not surprisingly) overlap, but she adds her own perspective as a mental health professional.
Thanks, Mom!
(I wrote this for my newspaper column the day of the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. I hope 2013 is the year we as a country begin to take serious steps to ensure such tragedies never happen again.)
This was going to be a very different column. Then 20 children died in Connecticut.
Gun control is only one part of what our country must do to reduce the chances of another school shooting like the one December 14 in Newtown, Connecticut—but it is a vital one. There are a number of petitions out now to let our elected officials know our thoughts on the matter. I’m highlighting a petition and a pledge from Moms Rising because they’re good folks who do a lot across the board to help those of us who have the honor of being called moms.
Like many people, I am still going through periods of fear and sadness as I think of the school shooting last Friday in Newtown, Connecticut. There is no lack of commentary on the tragedy, but here are a few that I found rise above the rest.
I am stunned and horrified by the school shooting in at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut today, that left 27 dead, including 18 children. I grew up in Connecticut. My own son is in elementary school one state over. Not that the nearness should matter—this is a tragedy for our whole country. My thoughts are with the families and community in Newtown, and I can find no more words right now. Give your kids extra hugs today. I know I will with mine.
