Our children aren’t safe in America, and it’s our fault

The primary threat to the lives of our children is the ready availability of assault rifles and high-capacity ammunition magazines, a specific kind of weaponry designed to kill people in war. I know, because I’ve used them for that purpose. Assault rifles are really, really good at what they’re designed to do, which is kill many human beings very rapidly, without giving those people the chance to respond or get away. The particular assault rifle used to kill 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., is the AR15, a slightly modified version of the M-16 rifle I used in Iraq. It fires a 5.56 x 45mm NATO cartridge that propels with extraordinary velocity a small bullet specifically designed to tumble when it hits the human body, doing enormous damage from as much as 500 meters away. It can fire those bullets about once a second from a high-capacity magazine that carries 30 rounds and can be replaced in five seconds.

It is insane that assault rifles and high-capacity magazines, designed for war, can be purchased and possessed by American citizens. All of the other weapons that I used in two wars – machine guns, hand grenades, antitank missiles, artillery – are illegal for private ownership, as they should be. But any American over the age of 18, including those under treatment for mental illness and those on the Terrorist No-Fly Watch List, can buy an AR-15 at their local Bass Pro Shop, along with all of the 30-round magazines and all of the ammunition they need to attack a small country. Once they have that weapon, those magazines, and that ammunition, they will be able to kill dozens of people very rapidly – at our churches, our movie theaters, or our schools.

But we can make our children safer. In fact, we did.

In 1994, the U.S. Congress passed, and President Clinton signed into law, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, prohibiting the manufacture for civilian use of semiautomatic assault weapons and magazines that carried more than 10 rounds. That law expired due to a sunset provision in 2004; during the 10 years it was in effect, massacres in which six or more people were shot and killed dropped by 37 percent, according to Louis Klarevas of the University of Massachusetts in his book “Rampage Nation.” In the decade after the law expired in 2004, massacres went up 183 percent.

The Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired and has not been renewed because of the extraordinary influence of the National Rifle Association on American politicians. The NRA, with an annual budget of some $250 billion, has mobilized gun activists and contributed to President Trump ($21 million in NRA donations), and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ($1.2 million in NRA donations), among other elected officials who send “thoughts and prayers” but not legislative solutions after each school massacre. Publicizing these donations, and holding the recipients responsible for their refusal to renew the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, is one concrete step that we can take on the road toward making our schools safer.

Another legislative solution that would help is holding weapons manufacturers financially responsible for the carnage caused by their products. A childhood toy I remember fondly, Lawn Darts, is no longer sold in the United States because it killed three children over a 10-year period; the Consumer Product Safety Commission banned its sale in 1988, and the producers were held liable in court for the injuries and deaths inflicted by their product. The 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act prohibits gun manufacturers from being sued if their products function as intended – that is, to kill human beings. It should be repealed.

There are many other steps that could be taken to keep our kids safe in school. The hard part is getting the system energized. I have two suggestions.

The first is that we publish the photographs of children killed in school shootings. I have seen what weapons of war do to human flesh; it is impossible to portray in words the impact of assault weapons on human bodies. Law enforcement agencies have pictures from every school shooting massacre, but we choose not to publish them to spare us from seeing what we have done. Combat veterans who have seen the horror of war firsthand should lead the charge to show all Americans what we are collectively allowing to happen to the tender bodies of our babies.

And we should also call upon our babies to speak up on their own behalf. Social media has many negative impacts on the lives of our children, but it also gives them a voice they have never before enjoyed. I ask every child who has lived through a school shooting to call out by name the adults who are failing in their responsibility to keep them safe – who are allowing them to be massacred for no reason save their cowardice.