On Monday, Gov. Bob McDonnell stated that he asked Laura
Fornash, Secretary of Education, and Marla Graff Decker, Secretary of Public
Safety, to review school safety audits recently submitted for Virginia’s school
superintendents.[1]
Gov. McDonnell also established a “task force” of public
safety exports, educators, legislators, and local leaders to analyze school
safety. The final product of the task force will include legislative and budget
proposals.
Finally, McDonnell created a new position within the
Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services that will focus exclusively on
issues related to school and campus safety.
The moves by McDonnell comes of course in the aftermath of
the shootings in Connecticut at Sandy Hook Elementary School where 20 children
and 27 individuals overall were killed.[2]
Since the shootings the country has been looking for answers as well as an
assured sense of safety for individuals with children attending schools.
While McDonnell’s moves show a level of response proportional
to the senseless shootings in Connecticut, how often have there been “task
forces,” commissions, special committees, and so forth, to address important
issues that are somehow soon forgotten, swept under the rug, or no longer
seemingly worth the time or energy?
One could argue that this issue isn’t going away anytime
soon. But wouldn’t it have been easy to conclude the same about the relatively
recent shootings in a Colorado movie theatre in which 12 people were killed?[3]
While this shooting wasn’t completely forgotten, were it not for this recent
killing spree in Connecticut, it’s arguable that the Colorado murdering spree
would hardly be more than a mid-page story in the local newspaper for most news
outlets.
Thus, Americans have a short historical memory and an ambivalence
towards guns with at least two different segments of social beliefs: the first
claims that guns kill while the second segment says people do the killing. The former
segment supports gun control while the latter vehemently opposes it. And never
the twain shall meet.
For my own part, both sides are right and both sides are
wrong. Guns do kill people and it must be asked, would the Connecticut killings
have occurred if guns weren’t so readily accessible? On the other hand, my parent’s
generation never experienced this level of senseless domestic violence. Why? Were
there fewer guns in those days, per capita? Perhaps, but perhaps the answer
goes deeper. Perhaps the reason why so many senseless shootings have occurred in
our own time is due to a loss of some social fabric that once knit most
Americans so closely together?
Whatever the answer may be, it is more certain that
establishing “task forces” is not the solution, in and of itself. Meaningful actions
will have to be taken, actions addressing engrained social problems, not just
whether or not schools are safe. Try as we might, if a crazed gunman wants to
commit these types of atrocities, chances are, he or she will, at least some of
the time.
Whatever answers these individuals and groups come up with, shootings
will persist until Americans once again find it in themselves to create a sense
of community for everyone. Together we stand, but divided, we commit senseless
acts of violence.
[1] http://www.nbc12.com/story/20365426/virginia-to-review-school-safety-policies
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/gunman-kills-mother-then-26-in-grade-school-rampage-in-connecticut/2012/12/15/9017a784-46b6-11e2-8061-253bccfc7532_story.html
[3] http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/11/14/colorado-shooting-suspect-cant-go-to-hearing-defense-lawyers-say/
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