Guns and Schools

When I was about five months pregnant for my oldest son, a little boy in our county took a gun to his elementary school and shot (and killed) a little girl. Her name was Kayla Rolland and she was only six years old; I do not remember the name of the little boy that shot her but he was near her age or the same age. When that happened, I wrote in my paper journal about how unbelievable it was that this had happened and how I was second guessing our decision to bring an innocent baby into this world. I remember sitting at my desk at work, hand on my belly feeling my son move, tears streaming down my face; I remember being so afraid of the world my son would have to grow up in.

Fast forward almost exactly eighteen years and you have Nikolas Cruz, an obviously disturbed young man that massacred as many people as he could at his former high school yesterday. And today I dropped my boys off at school and it was hard. I was choking back tears….I’m tearing up now….just thinking about the world they have to live in. I wanted to grab them and hug them before they got out of the car this morning but….they’re teenagers so that’s a no go. lol. We’ve had all of the conversations about “see something, say something” and their schools do regular “shelter in place” drills and there is often a police presence at the schools, just as a matter of routine. I talk to my kids as much as I can and try to pay attention to their moods and their feelings and their behaviors. I second guess every decision I make and worry about whether I’m doing the right thing every single day. But my babies….getting out of the car and going into their school – this shouldn’t be terrifying or anxiety inducing. But it is. Because there are so many evil, sick people in this world. Mental illness is rampant and so many kids seem to have no moral compass.

I am a staunch supporter of the second amendment; my husband owns guns and has a CPL. My boys have been to the range to shoot guns and know how to handle guns. My husband is an avid fan of hunting. But my kids don’t have access to our guns. They are locked up, in safes and gun cabinets. I honestly don’t know if gun control is going to change anything since people seem to find a way to reek havoc where they want to. But would the destruction have been as bad if this kid hadn’t had an AR15? Would the devastation have been so pronounced if he hadn’t had a gun? Would it  have saved some of those lives? I don’t know. Maybe he would’ve used a bomb or driven a vehicle into a crowd of kids. I DON’T KNOW.  But I’m scared. I’m terrified, really. For my kids and my little nieces and nephews. And I feel like we have to do something. But if it’s a heart problem – if the issue is a lack of conscience and an innate evil spirit – can we fix it? Again, I don’t know. I pray that we can do something, that we can make strides toward making our country and our schools safer. That something can be done to protect our children. The status quo is not working and my heart breaks for the ones that lost loved ones yesterday. I can’t even imagine the terror that those kids endured yesterday.