Shooters Love to Target Unarmed People
The first article I read yesterday was the school shooting in Nashville, another addition to America’s growing and infinite list. Six victim’s total: three were staff members and three were students who were just nine years old. Nine years old.
I couldn’t even finish the article after learning the victims young ages. I put my phone down and closed my eyes. I tried not to think about it, but wondered what it was like for parents to have to identify their child and see the brutality of what happened to them. It’s a traumatizing sight they will never forget. I began to have visions of teachers frantically trying to usher their students to safety by hiding or evacuating. I see faces of children I don’t know crying and running for their lives.
I glance toward my fourteen-year-old son whose at the table on his iPad. He has Duchenne and currently uses a wheelchair for mobility. He’s home because I home school him, but that wasn’t always the case. His entire elementary school education was spent in public schools, but with numerous doctor visits and unexpected fatigue from time to time, homeschooling offered flexibility and has worked best for our situation. I am thankful he is home but I started to ponder the “what ifs?” What if he was in still in school when an unexpected shooting occurred?
I call to my son and he pauses his game. “Son, when you were in school, did you ever have practice drills in case there was a school shooter on campus?”
He shakes his head. “No. Never.” I shudder when I hear that. Given he is in a wheelchair, he’s practically a slow-moving target. Would a practice drill of trying to hide or evacuate make any difference and increase survival?
He’s quiet, but in a few short seconds he responds: “There was another school shooting wasn’t there?”
I nod at him. We’re both silent and say nothing.
The thought of my son, in a wheelchair during a school shooting terrifies me. I can’t get the picture of something that hasn’t happened out of my mind. I can’t seem to “unsee” it.
When he did attend school, he had a 1:1 aid assigned by the school district that spent the whole day with him assisting with daily needs he was physically unable to do. After reading about the Nashville shooting, a scenario played out in my mind of an active shooter running through his school shooting random people in sight. His frantic teacher instructing students to hide or escape. Then there’s my son. How can you hide a child in a wheelchair? How fast can he (or any other disabled student for that matter) try to escape from a gunman? Naturally, my son would have his 1:1 aid with him but the most likely scenario is that his 1:1 aid dies trying to protect my child. But what of my son? I can’t think or type about it.
I’m slightly comforted knowing my son is being homeschool but at the same time, I’m not. I can’t help but think of other students in similar circumstances as my son. What would happen to them?
These psychopaths have shown they have no hesitation in shooting unarmed students or teachers. A child in a wheelchair is no different. They are just another target they will aim their gun at.
Every single person at a school is defenseless target. Many survive, but for the victims, it comes down to being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
What was once supposed to be a safe place for children to spend the day at has quickly become the preferred target for gunmen. Parents send their children to school, (of course children are unarmed) to a place where the entire staff is also unarmed. A site with no guns, a small population of adults and a greater population of children. You won’t find guns in the teacher’s desk or in the staff office. The principal, janitors or even the lunch workers are not packing hand guns. Everyone at the school is defenseless. For these mentally unstable shooters, it’s the most logical place to take as many lives as possible with no resistance.
Why shooters continue to target schools is a frustrating question I ask all the time. There is always speculation as to why schools are always chosen. In cases like yesterday’s shooting in Nashville, Audrey Hale was a former student and possible had a vendetta against the school.
These shooters target people who they know don’t have guns and can’t shoot back. They go to the school with the intent of killing as many unarmed people as possible. The most vulnerable. Children.
And the teachers? Most teachers have an average of twenty-five students per class. They deal with twenty-five(some very demanding) parents on a daily basis. Teachers are overworked and underpaid, yet in circumstances such as a school shooting, their first instinct is to protect their students, usher them to safety and risk their lives trying to protect them. In past school shootings, we hear story after story of a teacher who died attempting to protect their students. Heroes. These teachers are unarmed and I doubt there will ever be a law passed forcing teachers to keep a gun at their desk. So many issues come in to play such as if a teacher is comfortable handling a gun, training, but most especially, the risk of a student getting access to the gun or an accident occurring is too great.
Today’s shooter was armed with two AR-style weapons . The NRA has labeled AR-15 Assault Rifles as “America’s most popular rifle,” and lately is the weapon of choice for mass shootings. They are remarkably accurate, designed for speedy reloading and can fire dozens of rounds.
Unarmed victims are no match against an assault rifle with so much quick capability and children are no exception. It’s no wonder psychotic shooters target schools using weapons suitable for a battlefield. They’re too cowardly to target a police station full of armed cops or even a local military base for fear they will be shot at. They prefer to target the schools where plenty of children are present and there is no staff member at a school equipped or trained to shoot back. Everyone at the school is on their own until law enforcement arrives. Even if they arrive in five minutes, that’s a long five minutes where so much can happen.
I don’t have any answers. And almost twenty-four years after the Columbine High School massacre, neither does America. But like everyone else, I am frustrated and tired of hearing about school shootings.
The coverage of this shooting will decrease as the days and weeks go by. Only natural. Life goes on, right?
Well, not for everyone. It won’t go on for those who were killed yesterday and will never be the same for the families left behind.
The tragic fact is there will be another school shooting. Then another. And another. And another one after that.
More will die. Many of the victims will be children. Let me repeat, the victims will be children.
Am I wrong? I want to be wrong. But I’m not.
