Texas School Shooting: A Personal Perspective

HOUSTON, TX — It seems the school shooting phenomenon has become interwoven into the American news fabric, and is almost considered something of the norm in our society.

These school shootings have been a part of the normal everyday discussion for years, and we’ve heard all the opinions with no solution.

It should sadden all of us to the point of change, but it hasn’t yet.

While there are some of us who see this as little more than another tragedy or fuel for a political discussion, others of us have a very different perspective.

On the day before the shooting in Santa Fe, my wife and I were talking about school safety, specifically at her campus. She’s an administrative assistant in a Houston area school district, and knows about the discussion and the measures they have to take every single year.

She’s sat in on the round table training scenarios with law enforcement and administrators, and knows what to do if an active shooter scenario happens.

Our discussion was simple.

“There’s a reason you don’t see a lot of these in Texas, like you do everywhere else,” I told her.

I have attended numerous school board meetings after Sandy Hook, and saw school districts enhance security with automatic locks, panic buttons, bullet-proof glass, cameras, and security vestibules. Fool proof? Or, maybe they're just a false sense of security.

“Schools here have done a lot to protect those kids,” I continued. “I don’t think you’ll see it here.”

My wife sat silently and shook her head at my comments on school safety.

“I hope not,” she said.

The dialog on school shootings ended right there, and then picked back up again 18 hours later when a high school student walked into Santa Fe High School and did the unimaginable.

She hadn’t heard about this shooting because she’d been in meetings all day, until I sent her a text message.

“OMG,” she said when she heard the news.

LOOKING BACK

On April 20, 1999, I was in college and working at a news talk radio station in San Antonio when Columbine happened.

I had three daughters in elementary school, and had to answer the questions, “Daddy, what happened? Why did those boys do this?”

I didn’t know, and I could not give them an answer that would make sense to a child when I couldn't make sense of it as an adult, and a father.

There were speculations of trenchcoat mafia, bullying and and ridicule of the two boys, and a video game, where they allegedly honed their skills and developed their plan of attack.

I explained things very simply to my daughters in 1999.

“I don’t know, but you don’t need to worry. This won’t happen anymore,” I told them.

I’d explained it away like a bad dream, and I was wrong.

SINCE THEN

Since Columbine, there have been more than 100 of school shootings, with some emulating the so-called revenge perpetrated by Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold at Columbine High School, and taking their own lives, while some simply gave up to police after their individual killing sprees.

Some believe that gun control is the answer, and some believe mental health is the issue, and while both of these have their place in the dialog, maybe we are just making this too simple.

Maybe America is trying too hard to rubber stamp this issue.

In the days after the Parkland, Florida shooting that claimed 17 lives, students across the United States walked out of their classes, and many participated in large scale demonstrations in major cities everywhere, and vowed #Enough, promising to reach out to fellow students.

Then, 93 days later it happened again.

And just like in 1999, we still don’t have any answers as a society.

In essence, the walkouts failed, just like the talking, and finger pointing before and after every other school shooting failed.

Maybe it takes more than walking out of classes and raising a clenched fist in the air or hoisting a sign and telling politicians that enough is enough.

Maybe it takes more than politicians adding more and more laws to the books, and maybe it takes more than a prescription to make that troubled student feel better.

Maybe it takes more than stiff-necked arrogance by those on the left and the right with a political agenda, wanting to rubber stamp a problem, when there is no cut and dried answer.

Maybe it’s a lot harder than that.

Image: SANTA FE, TX - MAY 19: Crime scene tape is stretched across the front of Santa Fe High School on May 19, 2018 in Santa Fe, Texas. Police say that on Friday, May 18, 17-year-old student Dimitrios Pagourtzis entered the school with a shotgun and a pistol and opened fire, killing at least 10 people. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

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