We need to expand our view of ‘school shootings’

The recent shooting at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School in St. Louis was nothing like the 2021 Oxford High School shooting in Michigan.

In the former, the parents of the teenage school shooter did everything right, unlike the latter. They sought mental health treatment for their son — 19-year old Orlando Harris — and fearing his potential for violence, had his legally acquired gun confiscated.

St. Louis was also no Sandy Hook.

When the recent graduate forced his way into his former high school, his rampage was slowed by locked doors. He also had to avoid the area where seven security guards were stationed.

St. Louis was no Columbine.

School and outside law enforcement reacted quickly, arriving within minutes as alarms sounded. One officer followed the smell of gunpowder and confronted the young man. She shot him before he could take any more lives, including hers.

St. Louis was no Uvalde. Many teachers and students didn’t perish in the shooting. Yet still, a beloved, dedicated teacher and a vibrant student on the cusp of her Sweet 16th birthday died. Seven others were wounded, and a whole community traumatized. A family has lost their son to what should be understood as a young man’s suicide that violently claimed two additional lives.

Exactly one day after the shooting, a report was published that included a key understanding America would be wise to internalize.

This most recent case illustrates several stark truths about firearms and schools.

These are inconvenient truths, expunged because of political posturing and the tunnel-vision perspectives between urban vs. rural views on guns. And if they are not erased, they are simply misunderstood.

School shootings are “more frequent and deadlier” than ever. That is a key takeaway from the article, published Oct. 25 on the website, Theconversation.com.

Using data current to Oct. 24 for the year, there have already been 257 incidents, making it the worst of any year so far. There were 250 in all of 2021.

The authors of this study are some of the better known in this field.

They’re criminologists who maintain a database that tracks not only school shootings, but accidents with guns and non-fatal shootings at schools. These are the types of details that really shed light on the scope of the problem.

Their conclusions are valuable. They point out that this escalation has occurred even as society has made massive improvements in how shooting incidents are managed by school districts — with drills, training, and innovative approaches to school safety.

And yet, there is one undeniable conclusion, if we’re honest: Guns are too readily available, often to teenagers, who then bring them into schools for the purpose of harming their peers and teachers.

In the St. Louis case, Harris had been denied the gun sale previously by a licensed gun dealer. He then bought it through a private dealer, thereby circumventing a background check.

Clearly, we’ve got to do better. The authors fear that normalizing gun violence around schools is already occurring. They are correct.

Young people deserve to be the safest, shielded if you will, from harm. And yet, for this vulnerable and valuable group, we continue to fail them.

In St. Louis, the results were devastating and deadly.

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Paul Krugman Mary Sanchez Clarence Page Michelle Goldberg E. J. Dionne Jr.

Gail Collins Leonard Pitts