Another Week, Another School Lockdown
Hell wasn’t built in a day, America
My daughter’s high school experienced another lockdown this week. This one was because of the presence of a gun.
As a parent, I received the text message they always send out:
They likely know my daughter and thousands of other students had already sent a text to their parents.
This is not the first time this year this has happened. And it happened many times last year. And this is not a school in a red state or a flyover state we Americans think are the gun states.
This is in Maryland.
When I worked in Michigan, there were multiple lockdowns in middle and high schools that my children attended. It was always the same, too: gun threats, guns, bomb threats, lockdown. Wait and see what happens.
There is a certain sick helplessness to it.
How much longer do our young children have to be subjected to the insane gun culture we have allowed to be created in this country and in our communities?
My daughter is pretty sick of it, and I am sure her friends and schoolmates are sick of it too. When I talk to her about it, I can tell she is not just sick of it; she has a certain contempt for older folks, such as persons of her parent’s generation.
She doesn’t think we are responsible for this specifically. But she has inherited the world as it is. I had contempt for the older Americans who created the violent America I inherited.
Yes, I have a profound contempt for many Americans who think guns and violence will save them. It is more than stupid and irresponsible at this point and selfish.
I wish each day I could promise my daughter and her generation that things will improve regarding violence in America and mass shootings. But I can’t. It did not improve from when I was their age to now.
The U.S. Supreme Court, comprised of mostly old white men years ago, decided the fate of my daughter’s generation. The Court does not control all of the laws, but it controls enough of them to send a message loud and clear: Americans, enough of them, love their guns more than they love their children.
But if 90 percent of the country agrees that America should have reasonable gun restrictions, it should have them. But we don’t.
The U.S. Supreme Court should not be the final arbiter of that reality. But because of our broken political system and propensity to cling to false ideals and values, our children continue to experience a culture of violence, guns, and stupidity.
This is America.
The last thing I told my daughter when she was finally released from the lockdown and came home was that I loved her and that I was sorry. For now, other than writing in protest of this, it is all I have for her.
