I can barricade a classroom in less than a minute. I know that when the fire alarm goes off we lock ourselves in the room until someone confirms it’s real so we don’t get shot evacuating the building. I am trained to pack a bullet wound and apply a tourniquet. My classroom is organized with an active shooter in mind - filing cabinets in front of glass, big desks one shove away from blocking a door, hiding places out of sight of the windows. I have come to terms with the knowledge that I might die protecting my students when all I want to do is show them poetry is fun and teach creative writing.
with all the news of the texas school shootings going around, I’d like to remind you notto pass around anything that says shit like “men are inherently violent” or talks about “male anger,”because I can almost guarantee it’s very thinly veiled terf rhetoric, and we do not fucking need problems from them stirring the fucking pot on top of everything else.
I am not asking you to sympathize with the shooter, I am not asking you to just brush aside the horrendous acts of death and violence, I am asking you to look at the larger picture.
In a lot of ways, I have a lot of the same experiences growing up as the shooter in question. I was bullied extensively throughout my growing up, and it’s left me warped and antisocial in ways I am still dealing with to this day. It’s left me with PTSD, it’s left me with a volatile temper, and it’s left me with a lifetime of unlearning all of these toxic behaviors and coping mechanisms. And me being DFAB doesn’t Magically diminish those issues. It doesn’t reduce a person’s capacity for anger, or violence, nor does being DMAB somehow inherently increase it. this is not a question of biological sex or whatever imperatives terfs claim they have. this is a question of means, privilege, and entitlement.
if I didn’t have the support system I did, if I didn’t have the privilege I did growing up, there is a very real chance that I, or anyone else in my position, could have gone down the same road.
these are societal problems born of societal flaws. reducing it to just “male anger/men are inherently violent” is an incomplete and honestly just inaccurate and incorrect framing of it. it takes the focus away from the decision to commit these violent acts, and the agency with which it was done. framing it like this, like they can’t help it, because men are angry and violent, it’s just their nature, takes away that agency, and ergo, the responsibility for their own actions.
this is not a question of biology. this is not an unsolvable problem born of some ““unchangeable”” law of nature. this a question of privilege and entitlement. this is a set of patterns of behaviors, born of our collective failures as a society. this, and every single instance of this before it, have all been preventable, were it not for those failures.
passing this shit around only further enforces those biases, beliefs, and expectations that led to it in the fucking first place, and pretending that it doesn’t is, at best, wildly irresponsible, and generally just spreads pointless hostility, enforces stereotypes, and just makes it all the harder to fucking fix it.
Paul has since deleted this tweet. But since he does not care that he probably just ruined a transgender person’s life, of course he’s made no public apology. Well, not last I checked.
Also the 4chan person that pushed it literally said he knew that person had no involvement in it but wanted to get them bullied and hopefully lead to them committing suicide.
These are the people that republicans push conspiracy theories from.
[Image ID: a screenshot of a tweet (from May 24, 2022) from user oneunderscore_ reading “This false “shooter was trans" rumor going around the far-right is from a 4chan thread that links to a completely uninvolved person on Reddit who is still alive, doesn’t live in Texas, and obviously had nothing to do with the shooting.” With the tweet is a screenshot of a tweet from user DrPaulGosar, which reads “We know already fool. It’s a transsexual alien named Salvatore Ramos. It’s apparently your kind of trash.” DrPaulGosar is himself quote tweeting a deleted tweet. End ID]
texas wants to criminalize abortion so much that miscarriages are considered manslaughter but there are no restrictions on guns. no licenses needed. nothing stopped today’s shooter. nothing will stop tomorrow’s shooter either.
The gunman was 18 years old and you have to be 21 or older to carry in Texas. This isn’t a gun laws problem it’s a social inequality problem. We have to fix the issues that come before someone wanting to commit these acts.
Imagine, if you want to, 25 thirteen year olds, sitting on the floor of their classroom, in the dark, backs against the wall, blinds closed, lights off, their 27 year old teacher sitting in the chair between them and the door.
Lock down drills are hard. They are always hard, but they are especially hard when it’s right after a shooting. Most of the kids are scared. You can tell the ones who are the most anxious, the way they hug their knees against their chests, their straight-lipped expressions, their eyes staring at the tiled floor. A few others are less scared and more annoyed, more frustrated, more bored. They try to whisper to their friends, to crack small jokes, to break the weird, uncomfortable tension that settles over a group of children practicing acting like they don’t exist. They think this is stupid, a waste of time. It wouldn’t really help them anyway, would it? Would THIS, sitting quiet and still in the dark, REALLY be enough to save them if THAT happened? If a man with a gun was coming for them? Would this REALLY be the best we can do?
And then there’s me. A lot of teachers have posted a lot of things over the last few days, about how this feels, about what this means. And it’s true- without even being asked, I would take a bullet for these kids.
For the sweet little girl who brought me a Dr. Pepper when I had a headache last week. For the quiet boy who always turns in his homework on time. For the girl who never turns in her homework at all. For the kid who called me a fat bitch last Tuesday. I would take a bullet for each and every one of them. I know it unconditionally. If I didn’t, I don’t think I could do this job anymore. That’s why I’m here- in the chair closest to the door, the last thing between them and whatever might come for them.
It’s hard to explain how it feels to get that email in the morning, from the Assistant Principal, about the lockdown drill scheduled for 9am. Turn off the lights. Doors locked. Window covered. Silence. Wait for 2 administrators to end the drill. If we shake the door handles or pound on the doors, don’t make a sound. Push a few desks against the door to practice making a barricade. Tell the kids to hold their library books against their chests- they could help act as a shield.
Imagine- telling kids to grab their copy of Harry Potter, of Dork Diaries, of Warrior Cats and hold it against their chest. As if the newest Diary of a Wimpy Kid is going to save them. As if Hunger Games will stop a bullet.
I was 8 when Columbine happened. I don’t remember it, at least, not very well. I remember having lockdown drills after that in school. I remember hating them.
I was 16 when Virginia Tech happened. I was in my chemistry class. My teacher turned on the news, white as a sheet. We watched in silence.
I was 21 when Sandy Hook happened. In college. Learning to be a teacher. I remember sitting in my Adolescent Development class as the news started pouring into our phones. I remember the grief. I remember the anger. I remember the fear that filled that room full of young adults on their way to be teachers.
I’m 27 now, and there’s Parkland. A teacher, with my own classroom, with 25 7th graders sitting in the dark, listening for our principal’s footsteps in the hallways, pretending to be a shooter.
I don’t know what the solution is. I’m not even sure what the problem is. People will tell you it’s so many things- guns (partly I think), kids these days (kids have always been kids), a lack of discipline, a lack of respect, toxic masculinity (likely), white male entitlement (very likely), mental illness (probably not), violent video games, everything is on the table. Maybe all teachers just need guns in their classrooms (an idea that makes me physically ill, and I fear would do far more harm than good overall.) Maybe we need to ban those damn AR-15s (The guns used in Orlando, Las Vegas, Newtown, Sutherland Springs, and now Parkland.) Maybe we need to have a real conversation about how we raise our boys, how we stop radicalization and violence before it boils over into this. Maybe we need more gun training and more school counselors and more honest conversations about who we are as a people. I can’t say exactly what we need.
But we need something. Something big and fundamental, and it’ll probably be a messy, complicated ordeal to do. But we need it now.
I wrote this 4 years ago.
I’m 31 now.
And another 19 children are dead. Their teacher dead.
Another Facebook feed filled with thoughts and prayers.
Another round of debates, blaming mental health and kids these days instead of finding solutions.
Another round of people who would rather treat this like a natural disaster, a tornado or a hurricane, than something we could prevent.
Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas was the latest target of a mass shooting in the United States. According to the Texas Depertment of Public Safety, the suspect had shot his grandmother in the face before driving to the school with the intent to, “[shoot] every single person that was in front of him.” The grandmother is reportedly at the hospital in critical condition. Two fourth-grade teachers died trying to protect their students, and 19 children aged nine to eleven years old died. About a dozen more people were injured.
The 18-year-old suspect possessed the firearm legally. He had posted on social media beforehand of his intentions to kill his grandmother and attack a school.
Police forces stood outside of the classroom for an hour deliberating on what to do. Many of the children did not die upon being shot, but rather bled out in the time it took for law enforcement to enter the room.
This is the second most deadly school shooting in US history, with the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting in Parkland, Florida being third, and the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Connecticut being first.
On December 14, 2012, Sandy Hook Elementary School suffered the most deadly school shooting in United States history, where 20 children and 7 adults were murdered. In the near decade since Sandy Hook took place, school shootings have only managed to grow more common in the Unitied States, with 948 schools being targeted since the 2012 tragedy.
In the United States, gun violence is the most common cause of death among adolescents, with 1 out of every 10 gun-related deaths happening among people under 19. After the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, around 300,000 students have been on-campus during an active school shooting.
It is an utter embarrassment as a country, that no substantial preventative action has been taken to reduce the risk of a firearm ever entering the premises of an educational facility.
Our country is stuck in a perpetual cycle, where we fight over gun control and/or restrictions with no attempt to compromise or brainstorm ideas together that would keep this from happening to our children, then we forget about the issue a week later until another tragedy strikes.
If your egos are really worth more than the safety of our most precious citizens, then you should take a long look in the mirror and ask why. If you do not want to face gun control/restrictions, give alternative solutions to fix the problem, rather than simply block all action on the matter while giving out your empty thoughts and prayers.
Thoughts and prayers are not enough. We need real change, now.
Here are some resources if you want to learn more about this issue, or if you wish to help the victims of this tragedy:
a decade ago, 20 children and 6 staff members were shot and killed in the tragic sandy hook elementary school shooting. today, a decade later, 14 children and 1 teacher had their lives taken at robb elementary school in texas. it’s been a decade, and there has been nothing done to prevent this from ever happening again. may they all rest in peace.
I’m angry. I’m really fucking angry. I’m 16 years old, just turned 16 last month. I’m the same age as the kids from Sandy Hook were when they were mercilessly gunned down by another white man with an assault rifle. I was in 1st grade, same as six of the victims. I was in a similar classroom that day, on December 14, 2012. I remember many kids being picked up by parents, wondering why when I got off the bus that day my parents hugged me for a lot longer than usual. I didn’t understand then.
I didn’t understand why after that day we began to have lockdown drills, I remember asking my teacher “why are we hiding under the desks Mrs. Rush?”. I remember her response: “A bad man got into a school somewhere and hurt a lot of kids like you, we’re just practicing this for safety.” And gd, looking back now I can’t imagine how it must’ve felt to have to explain to a fucking first grader that they were in danger in the place where they should’ve been safe, where they were supposed to grow and learn. I remember those drills happening more and more throughout the years, and I still wondered “why?”, “who wants to hurt us?”. I was naive. I know that, and people may scoff at me for that, but I was a child. I was 6, 7, 8, 9 years old. I remember watching the news with my parents, hearing about things I didn’t understand, silently questioning why sometimes they would hold me tighter.
I didn’t understand then. But I understand now. I understand why in the lunchroom when a bag of chips pops too loudly, everyone (myself included) tenses and goes silent, eyes darting around for a split second to gauge if there’s danger. I understand why my middle school put in bulletproof doors in 2018, after the Parkland school shooting. I remember that day, checking our phones in class, a group of 11 and 12 year olds scared out of our minds because for all we knew, it could be us next. That has followed us through our entire lives, and it still haunts us all to this day. When there’s a shooting threat “credible enough to be investigated with our town’s police”, but “it’s fine to come to school tomorrow, we’ll have an increased police presence” that only consists of one cop outside of the building who left by second period, and wow, that reallymakes me feel safer! (By the way, that happened last Friday). When we’re reminded in homeroom to never open the doors to the school for anyone, even our friends, and “if you see something, say something!”. Everyone memorizes the format of each classroom, everyone knows where the closest exits or hiding spots are at any given time. The first thing we do at the start of the year is make sure we have lockdown plans set, and that we know where to hide so that no one can see us from a door or window in all of our classes.
My experience is not unique. Millions of children across the United States have and are living this reality every single day when we go to school, because the people who are supposed to be making regulations to keep us safe are failing or being blocked every single day. Millions of students have anxiety, and how can you not when you’re always wondering if you’re going to have to protect yourself and your friends from someone with a gun. And the plans they tout aren’t realistic. Most school shooters are fellow students. They know the plans, and turning off the lights and squishing together like sardines in the far side of a classroom isn’t going to stop a peer who knows where everyone is hiding. And yet, our lawmakers and administrators fail to account for that. And so we are left to figure out that ourselves, as children and teenagers. And it really fucking sucks. And they keep telling us that things are going to get better but they never do.
We are still watching the same story unfold, day after day, year after year, and are screaming until we lose our voices to “PLEASE MAKE IT STOP” but are ignored by those in power with our peers’ blood on their hands. “Vote”, they tell us. “Vote to make a difference!”. Tell me, what are those who cannot vote because we are so young supposed to do? We protest, we donate, we sign petitions, but nothing ever changes. And what happened today at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas is the result of that. We have been screaming for years about this, our tears and pleads falling on willfully deaf ears. How much more blood is it going to take, how many more mini-coffins will be six feet under before it is enough for those in power to decide, “y’know what? Let’s actually do something for once to save the children, the thing we’ve been preaching about for years”. How many more of us have to be traumatized, how many more of us need to lose our lives before this will end?
I am sick and tired of begging for them to care about us. I’m done with being worried every time an unannounced lockdown occurs. I’m done with going to school being a risk every single day. I’m done with having to suffer and watching other students nationwide suffer because of these older people who are mostly unaffected by the hell they put us through every single day of the school year. And many of my peers are as well. My heart and everything I have goes out to the victims, families, friends, and community around Robbs Elementary. I’m so sorry that this happened, again. I’m so sorry that these children who most likely didn’t understand the concept of death or that they shouldn’t feel safe in their own damn classrooms were massacred in the place they should be safe. I promise to do everything I can, same as we’ve been doing for years. I only hope that something will change this time. Is this time going to finally be enough? Will they decide that this time, they’re actually going to do something to prevent these senseless tragedies from occurring? I don’t know. But for all of our sakes, I really fucking hope so.
Call me overly sensitive, but, if you’re making a tv show that’s supposed to Tackle Issues, maybe think of a way to end your male-rape-victim storyline that’s not “he becomes a school shooter”?! To paraphrase Dr. Doofenschmirtz, if I had a nickel for every time that this happened on tv, I’d have four nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened four times.
Law and Order: SVU (in the two-parter “Man Up”/“Man Down”; more fool I for expecting better from SVU, a show that has been gross since I was in third grade, but it really is textbook-bad and narratively nonsensical).
American Crime (in season 2; really a drug-addled singular revenge murder, arguably voluntary manslaughter, that takes place in front of a school, but the show really wants you to think of school shootings, even including footage of post-Columbine interviews, which might be worse than SVU’sapproach).
13 Reasons Why (in season 2; thankfully averted, but altogether a confusing product of the show’s more-is-more writing approach and allergy to good taste/sense).
Veronica Mars (in season 2; I’ll give the show a couple of passes for being less message-oriented than others on this list and for not making the mass murder/follow-up murders much like a school shooting in terms of method or motives, but it should’ve picked a struggle re: that particular villain).
The Dead Zone (in the episode “Cycle of Violence”; because the hero of that show is psychic and uses his powers to help people, neither the revenge killing nor the abuse end up happening, and it’s not framed as an example of a Columbine-type school shooting, even though the episode is mainly about that…although it ends up being more about white supremacist hate groups and their growing influence online…anyway, a relatively benign example).
i am heartbroken and disgusted with this country, and i can’t sleep thinking about what so many families are going through and have gone through…
please know that i am a safe place and you can always talk to me, you don’t have to suffer with processing this alone. also please remember to use your voice and vote if you are able to.
i love you all so much (and if you do reach out to me and i don’t get back i am busy this week but will get back asap)
yet again the press is framing the murderer as a “bullied” and “isolated” young man, attempting to fish for sympathy.
butbullying does not a murderer make: if that was to be true, school shooters would be queer, disabled, poor, black.
entitlement makes for a helluva lot of motivation, though. there needs to be a significant amount of skewed perception of self: narcissistic and psychopathic traits. although this man is poc (hispanic/latino), he lived in a predominantly hispanic town, so probability of being discriminated racially is low. plus he is most definitely not poor: 2 assault rifles is not monkey business.
im adding some screenshots from a manual (uk based) that was given to me as part of my volunteer training (fun fact: before ukraine happened, i volunteered with women freshly released from incarceration), it is directed specifically at offenders with personality disorders. the prognosis for psychopathic individuals isn’t good.
it is not me diagnosing the murderer, im not a doctor, but im good with recognising patterns. “school shooters” are a dangerous, volatile group of criminals that lack remorse, oftentimes impulse control, and their perception of reality is, in my opinion, beyond any reasoning.
Do any other american high schoolers have intense survivor’s guilt and trauma with school shootings even though they weren’t at your school?
Like. A laser tag place opened geared towards teenagers and it got no business, we tried to enjoy it but when someone pointed a laser machine gun at me and I instinctively dropped behind the nearest wall and reached to turn off my phone I cried, I wasn’t the only one. The announcements system turns on at an unexpected time and everyone holds their breath until they say something besides “locks, lights, out of sight,” nobody even jokingly pops chip bags anymore, a door slammed really loud during a class change and everyone dropped and ran. Everyone cries during drills, even the toughest ranch kids. Every drill comes with a full day of teachers crying and telling us that they love us all so much and will die for us, and every kid in every class looking around wondering who would I die for? Who would die for me? You walk to the bathroom and wonder every second if it happens right now, where will I go? You test supply closet doors to see which ones are unlocked, you memorize which furniture in the teachers’ lounge your English teacher says is light enough to barricade a door with. The fire alarm goes off and nobody moves, instead you wait for gunshots—it a trap? You stand with a group of freshmen and realize that you’re the oldest, you know you’ll have to die for them. You forget your ID tag and worry that now the police won’t be able to tell your parents if you’re safe, or not safe. Your stats teacher has a baseball bat by the door, your math teacher keeps a stapler under each desk to throw, your drama teacher asks who will be willing to stand by the non-locking door with the Shakespearean swords. Your yearbook teacher tells you don’t worry about breaking a camera because you heard about the kids who died holding them. You don’t use the bathroom during classes because you don’t want to be the only target to shoot at. You keep your phone on silent 24/7 because you worry the one time you forget will be when you get your whole US History class killed. You have a snap saved with your class schedule and school and full name to send in an instant to your internet friends so they know if you were on that wing, you have a note saved with the things you want your mom to know and the things you’re sorry for. At the age of 12 I was told I needed to know who I would die for and that it was okay if it was nobody, that was my decision to make. School shootings control us more than adults and non-Americans could possibly imagine and nobody moves to change anything unless we’re actively screaming for it. Have you considered we’re too scared?
The absolute fuck. The fuck did I just read. This sounds like dystopian fiction. The fucking fuck.
It isn’t. This is 100% the reality of all American children - not the ones that live in bad neighborhoods, not the ones that make bad choices, ALL OF THEM.
Welcome to America.
This reminds me of a discussion we had in one of my classes the other day-
My professor was describing how everyone from her generation had the same nightmare of a nuke going off. In they dream they all saw the same mushroom cloud and everything. She said that she didn’t think my generation had a dream like that; one that everyone shared and had
For a while none of us could disagree with her. Until this popped up. I raised my hand and mentioned that everyone I knew had an active shooter dream at one point or another. And Every. Single. Person. Nodded. All of us had that dream. All of us.
Pretty telling, huh?
my band teacher (a sweet old woman who loved each of her students like her own children) kept baseball bats, wasp spray, and pepper spray in her room. at the beginning of the year she showed each of us where everything was, and taught us all how to use them. I’ll never forget how the band turned it into an inside joke: “oh I’ll eat lunch in her room every day so I can beat people’s asses!” but underneath the jokes?? the underlying fear and grim knowledge (and acceptance) that, in an active shooter situation, her room would be the safest place to be because we had a way to defend ourselves there. and in light of recent events, I’m so fucking glad she had those things, because the cops sure as hell wouldn’t have gone in there! we would have been on our fucking own.12 year olds armed with bats and pepper spray against guns while the police sat on their fucking hands outside.
I’ll never forget all the drills. my classmates and I would sit in dead silence as the minutes ticked by. and once, when someone’s face appeared in the classroom door, everyone (big tough farm kids included) burst into tears/started screaming. it was just the administrator taking note of how well everyone was acting for the drill, but I’ll never forget the way my heart plummeted into my stomach when I saw that shadow darkening the doorway. for a few seconds I truly genuinely believed I was about to die alongside the rest of my class.
American kids are scarred. we’re traumatized. and those of us who survive to adulthood carry the weight of our lost classmates and peers for the rest of our fucking lives
Where are the parents protesting masks in school because it would traumatize their children? Is THIS not a trauma inducing practice?!
Responding to the first tweet, my first grade teacher told us the same thing but at least she told us that if we were locked out, we should lock ourselves in a bathroom stall and stand on the toilet. Still fucked up but at the very least that was made clear.
I also know a guy who’s elementary school windows led into a graveyard so during drills they’d just shovel the kids through the window and tell them to hide behind the gravestones.
