Our hearts go out to Aztec
When the horrible news filters through — via text messages, phone calls, posts on social media or news reports — that another school shooting has occurred, the first response is to send “thoughts and prayers.” Then comes the obligatory, heart-felt prayer vigil with candles and tears. Always, we ask how best to prevent such evil from happening again. How can we stop other children from dying, other communities from being shattered and other families from suffering grief ? How? The truth is, we can’t always have an answer to that difficult question. Often, sound policies do exist that would prevent or reduce the harm guns cause. Those include background checks on all sales, keeping guns away from people with domestic violence convictions and banning the sales of highcapacity magazines and bump-fire stocks, to name a few both popular and commonsense solutions.
More gun owners can store weapons and ammunition safely, take safety training and do simple things, like not leaving loaded handguns where children can reach them. Communities can offer gun buybacks and reduce the number of weapons on the street. Schools, perhaps, could consider ways to further limit access so that danger doesn’t walk in, carrying a gun. (Arming teachers, as some call for every time a school shooting occurs, is never a good solution.)
Yes, the country and state — should they display the will — can reduce gun violence. We can take those steps even while admitting there are incidents that make no sense, where the best, strictest gun laws would do little to stop the carnage. Evil exists. And last week, evil came to a small New Mexico town in the form of a killer who attacked students at Aztec High School, killing two and then shooting himself.
The community of Aztec is shattered, grieving just as the semester should be coming to an end and families preparing their different holiday celebrations. Instead, two families are planning funerals. Killed on Thursday were senior Casey Marquez and junior Francisco Fernandez, shot by a former student who walked into the school at the beginning of the day, blending in with other students before he began his rampage.
Police are investigating his motivation and, of course, seeing whether he could have been prevented — not by security with guns or even metal detectors, but perhaps by the people who knew him and saw his anger and pain. They are asking themselves hard questions, too. Could law enforcement have caught the shooter?
A year ago, the shooter posted on an online gaming site, discussing the sorts of weapons that could be used in a mass shooting. Investigators talked with the young man, who at the time only owned an airsoft pellet gun, according to The Associated Press. He told them he had no such plans; he just liked trolling people. Were there other signals?
As police do their job of investigation, the rest of us should focus on the two dead teenagers and the people who loved them. They deserved better than to die on an ordinary school day.
For Casey, a cheerleader who loved to dance, there will be no much-anticipated performance at the National Cheerleading Orange Bowl. She was known for her bright smile and cheerfully shared her various senior picture sessions with friends on Facebook. Fernando, Paco to family and friends, had played football at Piedra Vista High School and transferred to Aztec High this year. He wore hoodies and basketball shorts every day, a cousin told the Farmington Times. He, too, had a beautiful smile.
These were young people, their lives ahead, tragically cut short. Paco died because he walked into the bathroom where the shooter was preparing; Casey became the next random victim. A normal day. Until it wasn’t. The students, huddled in their classrooms, listening to the unfamiliar sounds of gunfire, heard those ominous words: “This is not a drill.” They cried, prayed and prepared for the worst.
It is likely that more did not die because rather than remaining outside, deputies and officers entered the building quickly — that’s a change in tactics since the horrific shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado back in 1999. The bravery of these first responders deserves our gratitude. They are true heroes, fighting an evil raging out of control.
In Santa Fe, two recent shooting threats at Santa Fe High School have students and staff on edge. These mass shootings, for whatever reason, are an epidemic in the United States — so prevalent that the deaths of two students in New Mexico barely broke through the noise of the national news, even as the event shattered hearts at home.
Aztec, our hearts are with yours. As you mourn, so do we. There is evil in this world. On Thursday, it came to Aztec.