After Another School Shooting

I had to ask my son last night. 

I didn't want to scare him by telling him what happened in Texas, but I had to know how his teachers had prepared him for what has happened at far, far too many schools since Columbine High School. 

"Honey, have your teachers talked to you about what to do if a bad guy with a gun came inside the school?" 

He didn't even hesitate.

He didn't even hesitate.

"Yeah. They said to lock the door and go out the window," my son answered. "Unless the bad guy is coming in through the window, then we go out the door." 

My sweet child -- who has been alive fewer years than have passed since a gunman blasted his way through a glass panel at Sandy Hook Elementary and killed 20 first-graders and six staff -- has been trained on what to do during a shooting. 

He is not law enforcement. He was not conscripted into the military. 

He is 9. 

I know how he's the first one to come to the aid of another person. I've seen him stop cold during a soccer game to help an opposing team member get up after being knocked down. I've seen him put down his fork at dinner and come to the other side of the table to pat his coughing grandmother on the back. 

I know he has a completely unfounded confidence that he's an incredible ninja, with kicks that could knock someone flat and speed that will leave you dizzy. 

And I worry, as no parent ever should have to worry, that his innate kindness and concern would make him an easy target at school. If a child is shot -- if his classmate is shot -- he might run toward the victim instead of away from the danger.

"You know how you're always so willing to help when others get hurt? How you run in to help? I love that about you," I told my third-grader, desperately hugging his skinny shoulders against me. "But if there is ever a bad guy with a gun in your school, don't do that. Do not be a hero. You run to safety, because you're the kid I care about most in that classroom."  

I think I just told my 9-year-old to sacrifice a classmate to save himself. 

Everything about this is wrong. 

In one of the richest, most advanced nations in the entire world, I should not have to have these conversations with my elementary-school-aged child. 

In the 23 years since the school shooting that first got the nation's attention, Columbine, there have been hundreds of school shootings. Hundreds. There are so many that we argue the details of whether it's truly a school shooting if no one was injured, or if it happened at a wide-open university instead of a secure elementary building, or if thwarted shootings count. That's how inured we are to gun violence.

"I must have missed something," a friend replied to my social media post. "What is this in regards to?"

"Another school shooting," I responded. "Another. My god."

Including Columbine, there have been eight mass shootings at schools where more than 10 were killed. More than 10 killed. Three of these have happened in the last five years alone. Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. Santa Fe High School in Houston. Now Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. 

The children targeted and killed in Uvalde were my son's age -- 8 years old, 9 years old, 10 years old. Robb Elementary enrollment is about the same as my children's school enrollment. The town itself is about half the size of the small city where we live. 

It could happen here.

The insulating factor that has kept me sane mass shooting after mass shooting is thinking it couldn't happen here. Not this tired region halfway between suburban and rural, this unassuming little town nobody has heard of. But it could happen here. Those kids, those innocent 19 children -- 19 children -- could have been my children.

How much time passes between the moment a shooter enters a school, and the announcement of an active shooter lockdown? How much time does it take to shoot a 9-year-old, or a 6-year-old? 

What terror would grip his stomach and clutch his head when he realizes he's in danger? What is it like to hear your friends scream before they are shot to death? 

How would I wait to be reunited with my child, not knowing whether he was lying in his own blood on the school floor or panicked to come find my safe arms? How could I identify my energetic and kind son when his body has been destroyed by bullets from a high-power rifle -- the brown and white tennis shoes on his size 3 feet? The bright orange allergy bracelet on his slim wrist? 

Why do I even have to consider this? 

Mass shootings at schools, theaters, churches, synagogues, grocery stores, subway cars, music festivals, massage parlors, and shopping malls SHOULD NOT BE the price we pay for the freedom to bear arms.

Sitting in my son's bed last night, squeezing him between quick kisses on his smooth forehead, I fought back a flood of tears. I struggled to keep my voice from breaking. I tried to stay calm even though nineteen families will never hold their children again. 

Next time -- and there will be a next time, as long as we continue to change nothing -- it could be him.