Letter: Action Over Apathy

May 27, 2022

Dear Editor,

I hope that reading this makes you uncomfortable. The subject matter of this letter ā€“ the murder of innocent children in their classrooms ā€“ is something that none of us should ever feel comfortable discussing.

Unfortunately, its seemingly weekly occurrence has made it something that many of us have become numb to.

Iā€™m writing this piece for a few reasons. First and foremost, I am nearing the conclusion of my first year as a teacher. I can only speak for myself, but I find it hard to see “Breaking News: School Shooting” come through my phone and not wonder, “Is my classroom next?” School shootings were obviously scary as a student, but they never occupied my mind. As a teacher, their threat hangs daily and is at the forefront of my brain.

The second reason that I am writing this is that I am a gun owner who supports gun control. I am not the only one out there ā€“ I am part of the silent majority of gun owners who support universal background checks, permit requirements, and more. I fully understand and appreciate the rights granted to us by the Second Amendment. I also understand that rights inherently demand responsibility. Right now, we as a nation are wildly irresponsible with the way we are handling gun violence.

I want to address the major talking points we have heard from the Republican party in the wake of the Uvalde massacre, namely the “Good Guy with a Gun” theory, and the party line of “it was a mental health issue, not a gun issue.” These are the same talking points we heard after the Parkland and Tree of Life shootings in 2018. They were spouted after Las Vegas in 2017. They were repeated after Sandy Hook and Boulder in 2012. They are now being drug out again after the murder of 19 students and two adults at Robb Elementary School.

The full list of mass shootings would be nearly endless and excruciating to read through. Not only have these “solutions” failed to come to fruition, they entirely ignore the real and painfully obvious truth ā€“ we have a problem with guns in this country.

The “Good Guy with a Gun” mantra repeated daily by Republican officials was invented in 2012, just days after the Sandy Hook shooting that claimed 26 lives, by NRA VP Wayne LaPierre. It revolves around the idea that an armed security guard or police officer will save the day if a situation calls for it. It is a complete and utter fantasy. At best, it is a band-aid that treats the symptoms of gun violence. At worst, it is a crutch used to prop up decades of unsustainable gun policy at the state and federal levels.

What proponents of this idea forget to account for is the fallibility of man. In 1999, the Good Guy with a Gun missed, and two teenage boys went on to murder 13 innocent people at Columbine High School. In 2018, the Good Guy with a Gun hid, and a teenage boy went on to murder 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Just recently, the Good Guy with a Gun was afraid to put themself in danger, and a teenage boy went on to murder 21 innocent people at Robb Elementary School.

Even in instances where the Good Guy with a Gun managed to stop the gunman before they took their own life or escaped, the numbers donā€™t look great. The recent Tops shooting in Buffalo exemplifies this, as the shooter managed to murder 10 innocent shoppers before being apprehended by authorities. You may argue, “The Good Guy with a Gun prevented more deaths.” I would argue, however, that a solution designed around accepting any number of innocent casualties by homicidal maniacs, no matter how few, is untenable.

In the wake of the slaughter of children at Robb Elementary School, Ted Cruz (who has received nearly $750k from gun lobbyists over his career, per Open Secrets) told us it would be unconscionable to politicize this tragedy, and then blamed Democrats and the media. He sent his thoughts and prayers to the victims. Texas Governor Greg Abbott (who has received endorsements and donations from the NRA in every election cycle since 2004) looked into the camera on national television and told us not to blame this on gun policy. He told us that this was an example of a mental health crisis. Last year, Gov. Abbott cut $211 million from the budget of the Texas Department of Health and Human Services, the agency responsible for providing mental health services to Texans in desperate need of assistance. Abbott sent his thoughts and prayers to the victims.

After reading all of this, the obvious question is ā€œWhat can we actually do?ā€ This may seem like a rhetorical question, given that the frequency of mass-casualty shootings we see in this country has generated desensitization and apathy among the American population. The fact of the matter, however, is that there are some tangible steps that we can take at every level of government to ensure that we as a nation are no longer plagued by these events.
The first step would be to label the sick individuals who perpetrate these crimes as what they are ā€“ domestic terrorists ā€“ and appropriate the resources necessary to prevent their acts of terror.

Just recently, a bill titled, “Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2022” was passed by the House of Representatives. This bill would allow federal law enforcement agencies to open offices directly tasked with identifying and intercepting domestic terrorists before they have the opportunity to carry out their plans. This bill failed in the Senate due to a lack of Republican support. I would encourage you to reach out to your Senators and ask them why they refused to support it.

The next step would be to address the root cause of many of these shootings ā€“ the mental health issues that plague the individuals who commit these acts of terror. This means expanding the Affordable Care Act to ensure that anyone who needs access to mental health care has the means to receive it. It means expanding Medicare and Medicaid. It means making sure that there is not a single person in this country who has to struggle with mental health issues on their own because they cannot afford to see a therapist or fill their prescriptions.

Addressing mental health and school shootings specifically, means ensuring that at-risk students are efficiently identified and assisted. It means making sure that schools have the funding to fully staff their building. A lower student-to-teacher ratio means that educators have the opportunity to develop a better relationship with, and understanding of, their students. It means funding and creating dedicated outreach and intervention teams made up of community leaders, certified mental health professionals, teachers, and administrators to bring students who are slipping through the cracks back into the fold before they fall away entirely.

Another important aspect of this is developing plans at the state and national level to reintegrate individuals who have the propensity for these attacks back into normal life. It takes a radicalized individual to plan an attack against school children, and we need to address this issue the same way that we would address any other form of radicalized terrorism ā€“ disengage (ensure that they have no intention or plan of violence), deradicalize (bring their ideology back within the spectrum of societal norms), and reintegrate (provide them with the stability and means to avoid radicalizing again). If we can identify radicalized individuals early, we have a real chance to pull them back from the edge and prevent them from committing horrendous crimes against their fellow citizens.

The best (and only) example of a program like this in the US would be the partnership between the U.S. Probation Office for the District of Minnesota and the German Institute on Radicalization and Deradicalization Studies called the “Terrorism Disengagement and Deradicalization Program.” It was designed to reintegrate non-violent offenders convicted of assisting ISIS back into society once they had served their sentences. I had an opportunity to interview Kevin Lowry, the man in charge of the program, my senior year of college while working on a research paper. They do excellent work, and I would encourage you to look into the program further.

Republican talking heads do not have it entirely wrong when they talk about mental health in the wake of mass shootings, but they refuse to actually walk the walk when it comes to solving this problem. Tell your Representatives and Senators, at both the state and federal levels, that solving this problem means dedicating money to healthcare and education.

The final piece of the solution, and the one that ensures the success of the rest, is the one that no one wants to talk about ā€“ a comprehensive reform of gun control laws in this country. We need a centralized database of violent offenders, felons, and any individual who poses a danger to themselves or others. This needs to be accessible to both law enforcement and healthcare professionals. We need a national gun registry that can be cross-checked against the previously mentioned database to ensure that individuals who are required to turn in their firearms ā€“ either due to criminal offenses or mental health issues ā€“ actually do so. We need universal background checks to ensure that an individual is permitted to purchase a firearm. We need to prosecute any individual who procures a firearm for someone illegally to the fullest extent of the law. We need to make it more difficult for an 18-year-old to get their hands on an AR-15 than it is for them to get a case of beer or a pack of cigarettes.

I recognize that even if all of this changed tomorrow mass shootings would not stop entirely. This plan is not perfect, but itā€™s better than thinking, praying, and moving on. In order to make a real, tangible difference and stem gun violence, apathy must be treated with disgust. I encourage everyone who has read this to make their voice heard, regardless of where they stand on the issue ā€“ that is the only way that we move forward. Have hard conversations with your friends and family. Talk to your neighbor. Write, email, or call your local, state, and federal officials. Vote. Do something.

Unfortunately,

Dominick Giannini
North Warren

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