Protect kids from mass shooters, not history

In Uvalde, Texas, an 18-year-old with Ar-15-style rifle entered an elementary school and killed at least 19 students plus 2 teachers and hospitalized others.

We do know the ritual: It’s time once again for prayers, tears and then back to support for full, pure gun rights. School shootings have become just part of going to school.

We also know that once upon a time, way back in 1990 when Congress still worked as it should, the Gun Free School Zones Act of 1990 became law.

Congress made it a federal offense “for any individual knowingly to possess a firearm at a place that the individual knows, or has reasonable cause to believe, is a school zone.” The United States Supreme Court found Congress had exceeded its legislative power and struck it down.

What if all schools had not only smaller class sizes, well-trained teachers but also a well-trained child psychologist on staff to help these troubled kids and to give them the support they need to become strong, compassionate human beings?

Wouldn’t that be a strong “pro-life” measure?

To many legislators, the possibility of shooters killing students and teachers in schools is less damaging to children than the use of words like “gay” or “transgender.”

They seem to believe that if children reading or hearing the word “gay” will become gay or be ripe for a pedophile. They believe similar serious damage comes from reading certain history and literature books.

Take one book folks in Virginia think need to be forbidden — “Beloved.”

Toni Morrison based “Beloved” on the story of Margaret Garner, a real woman who killed her baby rather than allow it to be a slave.

Garner, whose children came mostly from her owner, who only beat her when she didn’t follow orders and only impregnated her when his wife was pregnant, escaped from him with her family.

All were captured near Cincinnati by slave catchers paid to return run-away “property” to its owners. Knowing this happened hurts children more than a shooter would?

Why is “Beloved” and other books, like “Huckleberry Finn” or “Maus” that spotlight disturbing parts of history considered more dangerous to our children than guns? Books open their minds, but guns kill them.

So state legislators are working to ban the books and words to protect children, but want to protect the right to own and carry guns everywhere, because they believe the solution to deaths of children in schools is more guns in the hands of more people.

If all those teachers and students had guns, they think a shooter would never be able to kill them.

The argument is that the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is a pure right and there should not be any restrictions on gun ownership.

Since the current majority of Supreme Court justices seem determined that we read the Constitution only as those Founding Fathers in the late 18th century wanted us to understand it, we best find the definition of bear arms.

Except the words “bear arms” fail to describe in detail what an “arm” is.

If an “arm” is supposed to be a weapon of some sort, what kind of weapon qualifies as an arm and what doesn’t?

A grenade is part of an arm until it is thrown by a hand. A gun goes “boom” and a cannon has a louder, deeper “boom.”

Does the cannon becomes an arm if you can carry it?

In any case, while we try to figure out what is an arm and what if any weapons we can possibly regulate to protect our children, let’s cry our usual tears and pray for the children who will never grow up and for their parents whose lives will be forever haunted by the loss of their children.

But aren’t these senseless deaths of children too much to bear?

Janyce C. Katz was an assistant attorney general for almost 25 years and currently works at General Innovations and Goods, Inc. She is a frequent Dispatch contributor.