I am reluctantly writing this commentary because I and others have made all these points before. Last Tuesday’s shooting in Uvalde was regrettably predictable and very likely preventable. And yes, without change, the next one is coming. We simply do not know where, who, or how many?
Clearly, like other mass shooters before him, this 18-year-old was not well. His grandmother’s neighbor reports that he and his grandmother argued about him not graduating. He shot her (predictable pattern, recall Sandy Hook, etc.), then went to an elementary school. I concede to gun advocates that gun-free zones could become targets for mass shooters, but the answer is not to arm teachers.
Those who become teachers are usually not the same personalities that will shoot someone, even in the face of a deadly threat. But, until fewer guns are in circulation, I have been persuaded that someone thoroughly trained with room keys, building blueprint, and guns should have been on location ready to act. Persons with school-age children know what that last week of school is like: laid back, movie days, etc. However, this trained guard would need to know that there is no lax minute on the job.
We heard on the news the tearful emergency trauma chief stating that her medical team was ready to receive several gunshot victims but was devastated that they did not even get the chance to receive them. The small bodies of these children sustain greater damage than adult bodies from high-velocity weapons and bullets designed to splinter on impact to create as much fatality as possible. We have learned from previous mass shootings that seconds matter with the damage these weapons can do. Tourniquets need to be everywhere, and everyone must know how to use them to stop the bleed because in a mass shooting…the first responder is us.
Regrettably, in this case, the delayed response may have cost lives.
Samuel Salinas, a student in the classroom with the shooter, said the shooter killed the teacher first, then shot the children. He survived because a bullet meant for him hit a desk. With a gunshot wound in his leg, he had to play dead for 47 minutes!
I testified as a private citizen to the last Texas legislative committee on school gun violence that if we refused to limit the access to weapons, we need to start widespread instruction of children on playing dead under extreme stress. That suggestion remains.
We know from previous cases that under the threat of death, private citizens with guns act like the rest of us: they flee, which makes sense. Look at the law enforcement-delayed action in Uvalde, and this was after recent active shooter training.
The bottom line, several 18-year-olds did not graduate this year; and several people argued with a family member. But it was a teen in a state with extremely lax gun laws and easy access to AR-15s where the last mass shooting occurred. Those who are disturbed or mentally ill will always be amongst us. No database will be current or thorough enough to capture them all.
What needs to happen is a ban on semi and fully automatic weapons, the accessories that create this capacity, and the magazines to match. With the world as our laboratory, we know that without these weapons in circulation, mass shootings will become infrequent and less deadly. We know this ban will work here because it did before.
But if we start banning certain guns, only bad guys will have them. No. Again, the previous ban worked, plus the 1980s taught us that if we make the sanctions tough enough, even the bad guys will change their conduct.
In the 1980s, when those in power became tired of the crack-cocaine carnage, they made tougher sanctions, and criminals either faced the sanctions or changed their behavior. Many did, exiting the drug game, dead or alive, or they switched to marijuana dealing. Tough laws, enforced, can change behavior.
Camille Gibson, PhD, CRC
Sadly, the following points may be working against us in our quest for change:
- It’s an election year, and many politicians have already been bought by the NRA.
- The victims have brown faces. Ethnicity and race seem to matter here in terms of what we are willing to tolerate.
- We fight for the unborn while, in Texas, the born sleep in child welfare office hallways (given a lack of placement space for abused and neglected children).
- Children lack adequate medical care given our state’s refusal to accept federal dollars linked to Obamacare.
- Mental health services are hard for youth to access unless they go into the juvenile justice system.
- With each mass shooting, we have become a bit more desensitized to the idea of schools as places where children can be killed.
I hope that my pessimism is wrong and that both sides will actually get something done. Again, a ban on semi and fully automatic weapons and related bullets and accessories that create such devices is what is most necessary to address mass shootings. If lives mean anything, this needs to be done. Or, let’s get on with tourniquet instruction and practicing playing dead under extreme stress.
Camille Gibson, Ph.D., C.R.C. is executive director of the Texas Juvenile Crime Prevention Center and interim dean of the College of Juvenile Justice at Prairie View A&M University.