School staff are trained to protect and intervene in a variety of situations - chemical spills, acts of nature, fire, social emergencies and assaults. And part of the routine of every school includes an orderly emergency evacuation. There is a coding system announced over the PA. For instance, a Code Red (intruder on campus) directs teachers and students to safely sit on the floor in their locked classroom, turn off the lights and wait for the all clear signal.
But it doesn't work that way when violence springs out of nowhere, as was the case in Omaha yesterday. In those terrifying minutes, the students weren't neatly tucked into their rooms like in the practice scenario: they were all over the school, in the cafeteria, walking between rooms, going to the bathroom. It was a normal day.
The highly-trained administrative team must have realized there was one chance to respond in the best interests of the school, and that meant trying to contain the situation. One of the Assistant Principals and the Principal attempted to intervene and were shot before the young man killed himself. The beloved and respected Assistant Principal died later at the hospital.
Everyone who has ever worked in a school, attended a school, sent their children or grandchildren there is chilled by the news. We cling to wanting our schools to be safe, but even with the best safeguards nowhere really is. This tragedy, like the dozen or more before it, is what happens when a country becomes so addicted to their right to own guns that they are willing to sacrifice the more fundamental civil rights of life itself.
I was in a discussion yesterday with a gun owner about the sacred intent of the constitution and whether it should be read today on the opening day of Congress. We weren't talking gun control but in retrospect the conversation brings up an important point. Amendments to the constitution, it was argued, are directional adjustments to what the forefathers visualized, in order to adapt to the modern world.
Well that is no more true than in our laws about our right to bear arms. The philosophy of self-protection has not changed although the world has. There is an increasingly violent disconnect between access and responsible access and another Amendment to the Constitution is badly needed. It's not just that guns are too easy to come by and too easy to use. They are the only common denominator here: access + anger + cultural reinforcement = violence.
Today I am thinking of the staff at the high school and the community in Omaha, Nebraska, and wondering what they are thinking about as they kneel in prayer.
This is the American face of violence. It is anyone's son (on the outside, anyway).
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