March 14, 2018
Page 13
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O PINION
Fear and Terror as a Normal Part of School
Sane gun laws
needed to
prevent
shootings
D erriCk J ohnson
Fear at school was something
the Little Rock Nine knew all too
well. Facing vitriol, racism, and
merciless violence, the Little Rock
Nine were escorted, for their own
safety, by federal troops to their
high school classes. For those
brave students selected to make
the promises of the 1954 Brown v.
Board of Education Supreme Court
decision a reality, fear and terror
were a normal part of the school-
day routine.
Decades later, fear and terror
still exist in our children’s class-
rooms. Due to the National Rifle
Association (NRA) and the politi-
cians that support them, meaning-
ful discourse on the issue of gun
control is nearly impossible, and in
that silence, school shootings from
Sandy Hook to Parkland keep the
classroom a battleground, not a
place of learning.
Some African American com-
munities know all too well the po-
tential danger associated with ev-
eryday activities, as gun violence
spills into our communities from
various angles. Yet, for the most
part, schools have remained safe
places for our young people.
by
Given the disproportionate dam-
age gun violence is having on our
communities, the NAACP
has advocated for sane, sen-
sible laws, to help eliminate
or at least to decrease the
damage and death caused by
gun violence. Requiring uni-
versal background checks on
all gun sales and transfers,
banning military-style, semi-auto-
matic assault guns, enacting tough,
new criminal penalties for straw
purchasers and gun traffickers, and
allowing the Center for Disease
Control to research gun violence
as a major public health issue are
just a few of the reasonable steps
lawmakers could take to stem the
tide of gun related deaths in neigh-
borhoods across the nation.
Unfortunately, years of ridicu-
lously easy access to guns and am-
munition has yielded an epidemic
with deadly consequences for all
Americans, but has been particu-
larly fatal for communities of color
who are disproportionately impact-
ed. Gun violence is the number one
killer of African Americans ages
15 to 34. Though African Amer-
icans make up only 13 percent of
the U.S. population, we represent
nearly 50 percent of all gun homi-
cide victims. Over 80 percent of
gun deaths of African Americans
are homicides. Roughly speaking,
1 out of every 3 African American
males who die between the ages of
15 and 19 is killed by gun violence.
African American children and
teens were less than 15 percent of
the total child population in 2008
and 2009, but accounted for 45
percent of all child- and teen-relat-
ed gun deaths. These numbers are
tragic and intolerable, but most of
all they are preventable.
Critics might call such policy
interventions naively ambitious in
our current political climate. How-
ever, comprehensive, sustainable
gun control is achievable. We know
this because someone has done it.
million firearms, banned automatic
and semiautomatic weapons, creat-
ed a national firearms registry, and
enforced a 28-day waiting period
for gun purchases.
The results were both clear and
staggering—there has not been a
single mass shooting in Austra-
lia since 1996. Additionally, data
shows that in the ten years fol-
lowing the Tasmanian massacre,
gun-related homicides and sui-
cides dropped by 59 percent and
...years of ridiculously easy access
to guns and ammunition has yielded an
epidemic with deadly consequences for all
Americans...
Just look to Australia.
In the past 20 years, Australia
has proven that sensible reform can
prevail over partisan divides and
high rates of gun ownership. In the
spring of 1996, Australia faced the
deadliest mass shooting in its histo-
ry when a 28-year-old man opened
fire at a tourist resort in Tasmania,
killing 35 and wounding 23 with a
semi-automatic rifle. Following the
massacre, the party in power—the
center-right Liberal coalition—
surprised the country and world
by joining with groups across the
political spectrum to implement
a radical intervention on gun vi-
olence. Over the course of mere
months, the Australian government
bought and destroyed over half a
65 percent, respectively. While
there is still room for improve-
ment, the immediate and directly
correlative impact of Australia’s
gun control reform demonstrates
the potential of policy to promote
peace.
Australia’s gun control inter-
vention was not achieved without
encountering significant oppo-
sition. Like America, Australia
holds a near fetish-like obsession
for rugged individualism, which
caused many to resent the gov-
ernment’s action and to perceive
it as an insult to gun owners and
a breach of power. To be fair, a
28-day waiting period on gun
purchases hardly fits the image
of the reckless, rough-and-tumble
Outback presented by media and
movies. But, as President Obama
praised in 2015, the Australian
people ultimately united in favor
of national safety and progress.
Australia’s success story is an
example for us all. America will
remain a deadly nation for our
children, its schools caught in the
crossfire, unless we insist poli-
ticians and the NRA curb their
lobbyist efforts and allow the
creation of policy that acts in the
best interests of public safety. The
solution is simple. America needs
sane and sensible gun safety laws.
The NAACP has spoken out, de-
livering a loud and clear message,
on the most urgent and impactful
policies pending, and we will con-
tinue to push and monitor federal
action on these proposals.
The disproportionate impact on
communities of color does make
gun control a civil rights issue, but
gun violence is a national issue
and should be a matter of nation-
al concern. It is also a matter of
freedom. Without sane gun laws,
parents are faced with the daily
and ever-present fear of another
shooting at their child’s school
that could have been prevented.
All Americans deserve this free-
dom regardless of skin color, po-
litical affiliation, or zip code. This
is one freedom that the NAACP is
committed to fighting for.
Derrick Johnson is the president
and chief executive officer of the
NAACP.
Armed Adults Don’t Make School Kids Safer:
They put them at greater risk
k aren D olan
Can we get real
about school safe-
ty?
Since the tragic
shooting at Sandy
Hook Elementary
School in 2012, there have been at
least 239 school shootings in the
United States. 438 people were
shot and injured in these shoot-
ings, and 138 people were killed.
On Valentine’s Day of this year,
14 high school students and three
faculty members at the Marjory
Stoneman Douglas School in Park-
land, Florida were gunned down in
the hallways and classrooms.
The survivors are demanding
that lawmakers take action to get
guns out of schools so this carnage
might stop.
The National Rifle Association,
the Trump administration, and
many conservative lawmakers are
by
answering these demands for
fewer guns by calling for…
even more guns in schools.
Specifically, they want more
armed guards, and even
armed teachers.
Is that really the answer?
Let’s see what the facts tell us:
Americans already own about half
of all guns in the world, and suf-
fer by far the most gun homicides
among developed countries. Break-
ing it down further, states with more
guns have more gun deaths.
All told, we’re home to 5 per-
cent of the world’s population but
31 percent of the world’s mass
shooters.
Clearly, guns aren’t the answer.
But even beyond the weapons,
putting more cops in schools has
its own risks.
Our public schools already have
legions of armed law enforcement
officers, euphemistically called
School Resource Officers (SROs),
roaming the hallways. As of 2014,
at least 30 percent of our public
schools had at least one SRO.
Marjory Stoneman Douglas
High School had one. And it had
two other trained, armed law en-
forcement officers on the grounds
as the massacre was occurring.
They neither deterred nor stopped
the shooter.
Nationally, we average about
five school shootings per month.
So while our schools are already
teeming with SROs, there’s no ev-
idence that this has kept our stu-
dents safer.
There’s plenty of evidence,
however, that the presence of
SROs hurts our students — espe-
cially back, Latino, indigenous,
LGBTQ, disabled, and low-in-
come students.
The presence of cops in schools
has markedly increased the num-
ber of these kids who end up in the
juvenile justice system — includ-
ing for minor offenses like graffiti
and subjective, childish behav-
ior like “disorderly conduct” and
“disobedience.”
As of 2014, 43 states and the
District of Columbia arrested
black students at school at dispro-
portionately high rates. And black
students were far more likely than
any other racial or ethnic group to
attend schools that employ SROs.
This is no small matter. These
types of arrests, detentions, and
referrals increase the likelihood
that children will have further en-
counters with the criminal legal
system, drop out of school, and
suffer unemployment later on.
In other words, the presence of
armed officers in schools doesn’t
protect our kids. It puts them at
risk.
A better way forward for
school safety is to invest in train-
ing teachers in social, emotional,
and academic development to spot
and address trauma and stress —
to see and teach the whole child.
And to invest in restorative justice
practices that nurture kids while
holding them accountable, to help
kids move on from small infrac-
tions before things escalate.
Our gun-soaked society is a
critical piece of the problem, and
strong gun control laws can begin
to address that. But another criti-
cal piece of the problem is a puni-
tive society that targets vulnerable
children for non-violent offenses.
Instead of arming schools —
which benefits only the NRA and
lawmakers who’ve been bought
by them — what our education
system needs is resources to sup-
port the healthy development of
all students.
Then we’re getting real about
school safety.
Karen Dolan directs the Crim-
inalization of Race and Poverty
Project at the Institute for Policy
Studies. Distributed by Other-
Words.org.