It is in the human quest to know what is to blame for the
mass shootings at schools. We have an insatiable need to assign blame as a way
of coping and understanding.
From Columbine, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook, and many others
in the United States, to those in Canada at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique,
Taber’s W.R. Myers High School in Alberta, and most recently at La Loche Community
School in Saskatchewan, educators and law enforcement seem baffled and
bewildered at how to prevent mass shootings in schools.
According to Everytown
for Gun Safety, an advocacy group working to prevent gun violence and build
safer communities, between early 2013 and late 2015, there were 164 reports of
school shootings in the United States, few of which made national or
international headlines. That equates to about one school shooting per week.
It all started in
1966
Things seemed simpler in the days of black and white
television. Educational centers were hallowed ground where crime was rare.
Teachers shared a pedestal with police, clergy, and society’s leaders.
That all changed beginning on August 01, 1966 when 25
year old former Marine sharpshooter and mechanical engineering student, Charles
Whitman, perched atop the tower on the University of Texas at Austin campus, and
shot 43 people in a 95 minute bloodbath, 14 of whom died (officially
reclassified as 15 dead when David Gunby died in 2001 at age 58 as a direct
result of injuries received in 1966 and the Coroner ruling Gunby’s death a homicide).
The shooting was an event without precedent and was the
embryo for the creation and proliferation of SWAT teams that now impregnate police
forces.
Whitman knew he had mental problems, and he knew he would
die that day too. In his handwritten letter left at the scene where he murdered
his mother and wife prior to embarking on his sniper carnage, he asked that
there be an autopsy performed and that his brain studied, explaining his long
suffering of severe headaches and depression.
At autopsy, it was discovered that Whitman had a pecan
sized brain tumor, but an inquiry into the mass shooting denied the tumor
played any role in the campus shooting or in that of the killing of his wife
and mother.
Awakening in
Columbine
Littleton, Colorado achieved infamy in a way nobody
wanted, save for Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, students of Columbine High School
and perpetrators of what was described in 1999 as “the deadliest high school
shooting in US history.” The pair slaughtered twelve students and one teacher, and
injured twenty one others before committing suicide.
Both Harris and Klebold were considered outcasts in the
community, never quite fitting into any prescribed pigeon hole for which school
cliques can be ruthlessly notorious. They were heavily armed with multiple guns
and knives, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and 99 home-made bombs. They were
determined to make their mark in history.
To the extent that the pair reportedly aspired to mimic
the devastation and impact of the Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah
Federal Building in 1995, and given the level of media attention that continues
to this day, it could be argued that they achieved those aims.
That said, some would add that the massacre at Columbine
not only woke the nation up to bullying and mental health issues at school, but
that the duo also touched off a wave of copy cats intent on making their own impressive
statement of revenge against perceived injustices.
Taking the Plunge
School boards began openly discussing arming teachers and
staff to countermand what some would describe as an epidemic in terms of the
volume and intensity of school violence.
Texas has long marched to the beat of its own drum and
therefore it should come as little surprise that a school district in the Lone
Star State would be the first on the continent to usher in a measure to arm
their teachers.
Located in north central Texas in eastern Wilbarger
County, the Harrold Independent School
District voted in favor of arming school staff in 2007 in response to not
only the Columbine shooting, but particularly that of the 2006 West Nickel
Mines School, an Amish school in rural Pennsylvania, where circumstances
mirrored those of Harrold.
Sparsely populated and located along a major highway
connection between metropolitan cities and a considerable distance from first
responders and the nearest major tactical team, geography was a primary
consideration in the decision to arm school staff as a way to provide safety
for Harrold’s 120 students.
Under the District’s established policy, employees are
permitted to carry concealed guns on school property and to school board
meetings. As a rural community in Texas where hunting is a pastime enjoyed by
many, protection from critters is a necessity, and in the state with some of
the most liberal gun ownership laws in the US, residents of every age are not
unfamiliar with being around guns of all sizes and descriptions.
Asked if he believes arming teachers makes his school
safer, Harrold Independent School District
Superintendent David Thweatt emphatically answers affirmatively, adding philosophically
“Bad things happen… Lots of people like the idea of not being responsible for
their own fate. .. I don’t like being a victim”. In speaking with Thweatt,
there can be no illusions on his well-informed stance on how being armed makes
everyone safer, and he makes no apologies for taking responsibility for
protecting himself, his colleagues, his family, and his students, rather than
waiting for a law enforcement response.
Since the Harrold Independent
School District took the plunge in allowing employees to carry guns, more
than half the states in America have passed legislation allowing school
districts to do so. Some have even gone so far as to propose deputizing armed
teachers, as allowed for under the Protection of Texas Children Act, although
Thweatt is quick to point out the differences of deputizing teachers to his
Guardian model.
While the Harrold
Independent School District opted to allow staff to carry concealed guns,
it is not the only solution in arming teachers. Some school districts in the
United States have created a central armory inside their schools, so nobody
actually carries weapons, prompting questions about how accessible those
weapons would be in a tactical emergency situation. Other schools have chosen
to arm only a select few staff, rather than leaving it open as to how many guns
would be on school property at any given time. Some have chosen to inform
students which employees are armed, while others hold that information close to
their chest. Still others have proposed wall mounted gun safes in each
classroom with an authorized user.
The mobility of carrying concealed guns offered under
Thweatt’s Guardian model appears to answer coverage concerns of classrooms and
school yards other practices cannot.
Arming teachers appears to be a largely rural solution.
Many urban school districts have long employed the use of armed security guards
or armed volunteer parents as School Marshals. Proximity to rapid police
response and SWAT-style forces allow urban school districts the luxury of
taking a more hands off approach. Response time is the biggest enemy for rural
schools. Columbine had one uniformed armed security that was located outside,
but on school property, the high school at the time of the shootings
With Canada’s more conservative approach to guns, the
prospect of arming teachers in this country isn’t even on anyone’s radar, being
quickly dismissed as a typical American recipe – add guns and stir.
Not Everyone is in
Favor of Arming Teachers with Guns
For its part, the largest teacher’s union in the United
States, the National Education Association (NEA),
representing some three million members, sees no redeeming qualities in arming
teachers. “Guns have no place in our schools. Period. We must do everything we
can to reduce the possibility of any gunfire in schools, and concentrate on
ways to keep all guns off school property and ensure the safety of children and
school employees.``
The NEA is not alone. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
adds its clout against guns in schools, calling the notion of arming teachers
``insane``. The Violence Policy Center (VPC),
a Washington, DC based educational organization working to stop gun death and
injury in America says, `` The focus should remain on preventing guns from
getting into schools, rather than relying on teachers or other education
professionals to prevail in a shootout.``
Muddied Waters
With the Second Amendment firmly entrenched in the US
Constitution, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security
of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed", gun ownership advocates view any limitation to their right to
bear arms as a slippery slope into tyranny. Conversely, having more guns owned
by law abiding citizens makes society safer.
Promoting such a viewpoint distracts from getting to the
root causes of school shootings. While the Second Amendment needs to be
respected and upheld, one might think that setting aside any arguments about
the right to own guns has any bearing
on identifying how these youth are accessing massive amounts of weaponry and
ammunition outside what might be considered acceptable for personal protection.
Further muddying the waters might be the culpability of
parents of mass shooters, if they failed to secure guns, or failed to obtain
health care intervention, or any other failure on their part as wardens.
Regardless of any such shortcomings, it doesn’t change the outcomes of the
horrific school shootings. And, as if the waters couldn’t get any murkier, it
should not escape anyone’s attention that school shootings occur on college
campuses as well, where students are of, or approaching, the age of majority.
Too, not all school shootings are the work of a student,
as was the case with gunman Charles Carl Roberts IV where he shot eight school
girls at the West Nickel Mines School, killing five.
Looking for a
Scapegoat in Mental Illness
Using mental illness as the raison d’etre for school
shootings is an oversimplification of a much deeper and darker issue. Media
tends to quickly suggest or assign mental illness, diagnosed or otherwise, as
the instigator behind school shootings, something at which mental health
practitioners collectively roll their eyes and audibly sigh.
Says Shannon Frattaroli, PhD, of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health “Mental illness, in and of itself, isn’t a risk factor
for committing violence. We see that people who are suffering from mental
illness are more likely to be victims of gun violence than those who are not
suffering from mental illness.”
Some in the mental health field equate the stigma of
marrying mental illness and mass shootings in two ways to that of cancer.
Firstly, there is no one singular cause for cancer and
therefore there can be no one singular treatment. In further using the cancer
analogy, there are different reasons that trigger perpetrators of school
shootings, and therefore, the need exists to cut a wide swath in addressing the
prevention and treatment of school shootings.
And secondly, not everybody with cancer dies. So too, not
everybody with a mental illness commits a violent crime such as a school
shooting. However, some cancer patients do die, just as some school shooters
suffer mental illnesses.
What seems ubiquitous among mental health professionals
is that predicting school shootings is impossible, just as that of predicting
mass shootings anywhere. Some believe there are key indicators that may help
identify students who require intervention, regardless of whether the student
has any intention of going on a shooting rampage.
In a study published by the American Journal of Public
Health, lead author and Vanderbilt University Professor of Psychiatry, Dr.
Jonathan Metzl, supports the position that rather than trying to predict a
mental illness as the cause of school shootings, it is far more productive to
focus on known predictors of gun violence, namely alcohol and drug use, history
of violence, access to firearms, and personal relationship stress.
Evolving the
Conversation
It would be wrong to think school districts that choose
to arm employees rely exclusively on this solution alone for their security
protocols.
Typical preventative security measures at schools only
scratch the surface. Installation of metal detectors and surveillance cameras, employing
roaming guards, profiling students that exhibit warning signs for violence, and
similar passive countermeasures all form part of security in many school districts..
Obviously, it has not been robust enough, and all signs point ominously to it
being insufficient in the future.
Misguided as it may be in blaming mental illness for
school shootings, the conversation surrounding mental health in Canada has
generally evolved to be more open and has broken the stigma that it is the
bastard child of public health. That must be seen in a positive light.
Publicity campaigns against bullying and sexual assault
in schools and in the community have been successful in raising awareness of
violence and mental health issues. Both are now seen as part of the broader
spectrum of health care delivery in Canada.
In his 2012 report, School
Shootings and Student Mental Health – What Lies Beneath the Tip of the Iceberg,
Minneapolis based psychiatrist, William Dikel, MD, advocates an intervention
model of locating a mental health clinic
inside the school as a real solution, providing easy accessibility for, and
closer monitoring of, students.
Somebody needs to open the chequebook and pinpoint
effective methods of early intervention. The conversation has begun but more animated
action and innovative thinking is paramount if devastating tragedies such as La
Loche and similar once weekly school shootings are ever to be prevented.
The Last Word
Almost a decade into their policy of permitting employees
to carry guns, Harrold Independent School
District’s David Thweatt believes his policy is prudent in preventing
school shootings. He adds that nobody is looking forward to a time when they
may have to draw their weapons, summing it up this way, “I wouldn’t want to
have to call a parent to say we had a shooting at school, but if it did happen,
guess what? The bad guy is dead and your child is coming home”.
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