Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Gambling lives of innocent kids
I DID the school run this morning dropping my seven-year-old son to his primary with almost 100% certainty that he will be safe.
He scooted in with his best friend, laughing as they compared toys.
Outside of our home, school should be the safest environment for him and his classmates.
It devastates me to know I can’t say the same for my 10-year-old nephew. He goes to primary in Texas, the state in which a sick and twisted teenager walked in and murdered 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School. It’s the worst school shooting since Sandy Hook in 2012.
As soon as I saw the words “Texas school shooting”, my heart started racing and I was immediately on the phone to my sisters. Robb Elementary is 300 miles away from where my nephew goes to school in Dallas, no distance at all in the US. And the massacre has left them all devastated and shaken.
“This is too much,” one of my sisters said in tears last night. “The thought he would want to hurt a child let alone murder children in cold blood is beyond me.”
It’s beyond all of us.
We’ve been here too many times before. Sandy Hook, Columbine, Santa Fe High – America has learned nothing from these massacres.
I travelled to Texas for Easter, the first time since the pandemic. And I still can’t get over the sight of ordinary citizens, rather than phones clipped to their belts, walking around with guns on their waists instead.
Texas, like many other states in America, is an open carry state. This means people are legally permitted to carry guns in plain view.
For teenagers as young as 18 it’s perfectly OK, normal even, to go to the store to buy them. What does any 18-year-old need with a gun unless they are in the military?
My nephew has had to undergo training in what to do if a gunman attacks his school. This includes practice where to run and hide.
For goodness sake this is America not a war-torn country.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has now called for teachers to be armed, which is a ridiculous suggestion. Teachers go to school to nurture young children.
They don’t go to get into gun battles with killers. The idea that you fight guns with more guns is total fantasy land stuff.
If America wants to stop any more killings they will have to make every school a fortress, as hard to get into as the White House and station armed soldiers outside each one. Or they could ban these weapons. Every day across America parents send their children to school. Each day feels like a massive gamble. For how much longer will authorities risk the lives of innocent children?
The idea that you fight guns with more guns is a fantasy