Why “I CARE” about school shootings…

We are looking at school shootings incorrectly.

• The young men, and it will almost always be young men guaranteed, who carry out these actions are not “evil monsters” born to create mass carnage and death in our nation’s schools. They are not fueled by “the Devil” or “filled with evil”, but created and developed within our own society.
• Schools are NOT targets for these young men because they are “soft targets”. They are targets because a particular school is the place school shooters associate with all loss of help and hope in their own life.
• School shooters motivations will ALWAYS include a desire for others to experience the pain, chaos, confusion, and hopelessness they feel in their own lives, and this is also a major factor in why they choose schools. They will also believe that others are incapable of understanding the depth of the suffering in their own lives and that they are “on their own”.
• School shooters will feel they do not “belong” in society. They will also feel they are “beyond” all help in life and their actions no longer “matter”. However, they choose their actions because they want to be “noticed”.
• School shootings happen because a shooter has access to guns and has lost hope in life, and having armed teachers within a school will not alter the “psychology” of a school shooter. Once the “final” decision to take action has been made, there is “nothing to lose”.
• There is never a moment when an individual who is planning a school shooting becomes “unhelpable”. The ONLY belief a school shooter needs to NOT pull the trigger is that they are VALUED in this life. If there is SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE who cares, the likelihood of a school shooting becomes minimal.
• School shootings do NOT have to happen.

As an American, as a person who has worked in schools, as a person who cares deeply about education and as a person concerned about the safety of my own family and the youth in this country, I CARE about school shootings.

I do NOT share these words freely. It is actually painful to me to write these words and to admit some of my past. I would MUCH rather bury these words deep within my own conscience and let them be, hidden. But the time has come and there are reasons to share.

I am a person who knows what it feels like to lose all hope. I am a person who knows what it feels like to not “belong” in this world. I am a person who knows what it feels like to curse the moment you wake in the morning because it simply means you have to suffer one more day. I am a person who knows what it feels like to hold a knife in my hand and wish I was not so afraid of pain. I am a person that knows if I had access to a gun when I was younger, I would not be alive today. I am a person who knows intimately the unendurable desperation life can create. I am a person who knows what it feels like to want to die, to need to die, actually.

I am also a person lucky enough to be surrounded by people who love me and care for me, ALWAYS. I am a person who knows what it feels like to have people around me who will NEVER GIVE UP! Even if I wanted them to, once upon a time. I am a person who knows the power of connection to others, even when you feel you are not worthy. I am a person who has been SO lucky in life.

School shootings can be stopped. School shootings should be stopped. But actions are required. I don’t portend to know all the actions and I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I do know this. Access to guns, especially assault rifles, must be limited, if not eliminated. More important, to myself and the country as a whole, is the need, ABSOLUTE NEED, for every child in this country to KNOW they are loved. To KNOW they are cared for. To KNOW they are valued. To KNOW they belong. I am alive today because of these two realities. Many are NOT alive today because of these two realities. This is why “I CARE”, always.