My Son's School Went On Lockdown Twice In A Week

Twice in a week's time, my son's high school went into lockdown because of gun incidents.

Taken from the book "Lucy Practices a Lockdown"

THE FIRST INCIDENT:

As a parent, I found out the same way that most parents do when a gun incident happens at their kid's school:  I got a panicked text from my son:  

There's a lockdown don't come to school it's not a drill I love you

It was 11:00 AM on Friday, 1/11. I texted back that I loved him and to be safe, then immediately stopped what I was doing at work to let my wife know and to consult the news.

What I soon learned was that the incident that precipitated the lockdown had been over for almost a half hour. Unable to get to his phone, my son had spent all that time laying on the floor in his teacher's office, the door barricaded and lights off, with other scared children, some crying, some frantically texting their parents, while they waited to find out what their fate was. 

A particular signal had come over the intercom. It was brief "so it wouldn't alert the shooter," as my son explained. Then, as the teacher barricaded the door, turned off the light, and they all took cover, administrators put his high school, and two other schools next door, into lockdown.

HERE is the news story I first read. It explained that a man had gone to the middle school right next to my son's high school for a "custody dispute," that the man had been shot and killed by officers, and that no students were harmed. According to the official Eugene Police Department release:

"At 10:27 a.m. today, January 11, Eugene Police responded to a custodial dispute involving an adult male at Cascade Middle School, 1525 Echo Hollow Road," Eugene Police said. "As officers were escorting the male from the school, he produced a firearm and a struggle ensued. During the struggle the subject was shot by police and is now deceased. This occurred outside of the school."

The man who was shot was named Charlie Landeros, age 30. The shooting happened right outside the main doors to the middle school. From what I understand, the man's daughter witnessed the whole thing.

I was relieved to know that my son wasn't in danger. And the lockdown soon ended.  Meanwhile, concerned parents had shown up to take their children, having gotten the call about their kids and wondering how they would be traumatized, particularly the children at the middle school, some of whom heard the shots. One 11 year old boy described the fearful moments:

"I was getting out of second period and I was sitting on a bench and I got up to go to my locker to put my binder away to go to third period when I [heard] the announcement … and I ran to the library and went under the computer lab desks," he said. "I was kind of scared because some of the people that were with me also underneath the desk were talking about they actually did hear gunshots and were down where it all started. 

"I wasn't thinking you know, about getting shot. I was just … thinking about my family and … that stuff because my tablet was in my locker and I couldn't text anyone and that kind of scared me a little. 

"I was relieved because when I pulled up my messages there were a couple texts from my mom and she was asking if I was OK," Josiah said. "I'm feeling good safe since I'm finally out of school."

My son told me that when the lockdown was over, and he went into the corridors with the other students, there were "a lot of red faces" from people crying. He had trouble that night, needing some quiet time to reflect and a bit of extra attention, unable to watch shows that involved any tense situations, but otherwise handled it pretty well. But I'm certain there were many children far more disturbed by the event, particularly younger kids.

Thankfully, the schools reacted exactly as they had practiced.  I'm thankful the shooting happened outside the doors of the school, too.

The police haven't issued any further public report yet. Like most schools these days, who unfortunately have to prepare for this situation due to the increase in shootings at schools nationwide, there were cameras at the front door that almost certainly recorded the event.  The family of the shot man have demanded to view them. The Civil Liberties Defense Center, which released a statement and memorium for Landeros, suggested that the shooting was not justified (they refer to it as a "homicide") and suspecting racial bias, calling for a "transparent, unbiased and thorough" investigation. 

But here's the crux of the problem: Landeros apparently showed up to the school with a concealed handgun. It is important to note that, in Oregon, it is not illegal to have a concealed handgun on the grounds of public schools if you have a conceal carry permit. The school board of a district can choose to disallow hidden guns of staff members and faculty, if they wish, but not for visiting parents. I don't know if Landeros had a permit. But this needs to change.  This case is a very good example why it's a bad idea. Landeros showed up to a dispute, likely in an anxious state of mind. I don't know why police were called, or why he was being escorted by police out of the building. Was it because they knew he had a gun? I don't know at this time. But it's a dangerous situation made potentially deadly by the presence of a loaded firearm -- and deadly it was.

Pro-gun nutcases like to spout that school shootings wouldn't happen if only citizens could arm themselves. But it is precisely BECAUSE a citizen was armed that the event happened in the first place.


THE SECOND INCIDENT:

Only three school days later, on Wednesday, 1/16, my son texted me again:

We are having another lockdown there is a suspicious person on campus we are safe in the our classrooms and the police are here to help

With no mention of guns this time, I was less worried. UNTIL I read a news article a few minutes later that stated:

"a report of a person, possibly a student, who might have had a handgun on campus"

My heart sank. Once again, students barricaded themselves in classrooms, this time for almost an hour, as police searched the grounds, with my son's high school on lockdown and three other middle and elementary schools on lockout (where the exterior doors are locked but students are not barricaded and hiding in rooms). A student had seen the person with a handgun "in his waistband" and notified school staff, who then initiated the lockdown. The person with the gun was never found. Was it a student? Was it another adult with dubious intent? Will they come back to the school, armed?


According to a Washington Post study released in December of last year, 4 million children (!) in America had to endure lockdowns in the 2017-2018 school year.  FOUR MILLION!  There was a time when children hid under desks in "duck and cover" drills, afraid of nuclear bombs from far away. But today, the threats are within our own communities.

From the article:

More than 4.1 million students endured at least one lockdown in the 2017-2018 school year alone, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis by The Washington Post that included a review of 20,000 news stories and data from school districts in 31 of the country’s largest cities. 

The number of students affected eclipsed the populations of Maine, Rhode Island, Delaware and Vermont combined. But the total figure is likely much higher because many school districts — including in Detroit and Chicago — do not track them and hundreds never make the news, particularly when they happen at urban schools attended primarily by children of color. 

Still, on a typical day last school year, at least 16 campuses locked down, with nine related to gun violence or the threat of it. The Post’s final tally of lockdowns exceeded 6,200.

Jesus. If these horrifying statistics don't alarm us, what will?? School lockdown drills are now at least as common as fire drills. Sadly, our society is so overflowing with guns and violence, it has become necessary. There are even books you can buy for your children that try to lessen the trauma of lockdowns and lockdown drills, like "Lucy Practices a Lockdown" and "The Lockdown Drill."

But look at the cost to our children of all these lockdowns! From that same article:

The sudden order to hunker down can overwhelm students, who have wept and soiled themselves, written farewell messages to family members and wills explaining what should be done with their bicycles and PlayStations. The terror can feel especially acute right after school shootings like the one in Parkland, Fla., when kids are inundated with details from massacres that have taken the lives of students just like them.

 Kids just like mine. And just like yours.

Year after year, madmen and armed children go into schools and commit murder, suicide, and mass shootings, and still our national leaders have done nothing to change it other than to offer empty condolences.

Sure, we can turn our schools into armed fortresses, and every other public space, but is that really the kind of place we want for our children?  The only solution is to do more to keep guns out of the wrong hands and to fight the NRA's "guns everywhere" profiteering agenda.

It's time for change, for the sake of our children, to create a new trajectory for our communities.


UPDATE: HERE is a very good and detailed write-up on Charles Landeros and his motivations and pro-gun extremisim.

Fear Of Taking Your Guns Versus Our Fear For Our Children

This really says it all...

Arm Teachers In Florida? Parkland School Board Says No. One Teacher Disagreed - And Had A Gun Accident

After the Parkland shooting, there was tremendous pressure on the Florida Governor Rick Scott to take action.  He signed into law a bill called the "Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act" which raised the age to buy all firearms to 21, imposed a three-day waiting period for most gun purchases, provides new mental health programs for schools, and restricted access to guns from people who show signs of mental illness or violence.

But, in a nod to the NRA and President Trump's call to arm teachers, the act also now allows Florida schools to choose to arm their teachers and staff.  It's a provision that is vocally opposed by teaching organizations, child advocacy groups, Florida school students, and even the families of school shooting victims. 

Nevermind that no school shooting was ever stopped by an armed civilian who wasn't law enforcement. And, as I've pointed out in a prior post, at least 23 incidents have been CAUSED on school grounds by armed individuals, including guards, who were supposed to be the sort the NRA claims will protect our children.

The Parkland school district isn't playing along -- the very school district where the shooting occurred -- and is refusing to arm their staff:

“I have not met one teacher or one student who is in favor of arming teachers in Broward County,” board member Laurie Levinson said. 

The school board instead wants the allotted money from the bill to go toward armed school resource officers, CBS Miami reported. 

“We should definitely launch a campaign to persuade the governor, for those districts who do not want to arm their employees, that they give us the money to keep kids safe in other ways,” board member Robin Bartleman said.

(And they aren't the only Florida school board to reject the notion).

Well, actually, there was one teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who was open to the idea of packing heat on campus.  Science teacher Sean Simpson supported his students in their calls to bring tighter gun regulations, but he also stated about arming teachers: 

"I know there are some of us that are willing to take the training if it was offered and probably be another line of defense."

He was on campus when the shots rang out and the shooter killed 17 and injured 15. So why aren't the gun nuts trumpeting his assertion to arm himself on campus?  Probably because he promptly had an accident with his loaded gun:

[Simpson] told deputies he accidentally left the gun in a stall at the bathroom at the Deerfield Beach Pier during a visit to the beach Sunday. While going back to retrieve it, he heard a gunshot and once back inside the bathroom, saw 69-year-old Joseph Spataro holding the gun.  

He left his loaded gun unattended in a public bathroom and a homeless man found it and fired it "to see if it was loaded." Luckily no one was injured. Oopsie! So much for that NRA poster child!  According to responding deputies:

"There was a reasonable likelihood that the firearm could have ended up in the hands of a child or the discharge of the firearm could have wounded another person or child."

Imagine if he had left that gun in the school bathroom instead!  It's happened before, again, and again, and again.

Both Simpson and the homeless person are facing charges, but so far Simpson hasn't lost his job as a teacher.  I can only wonder what his students are thinking of him as they deal with their shooting-induced PTSD.  At least they can rest assured that neither he nor any of the other teachers will be allowed to carry on campus!

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The Far-Right Continues To Attack The Parkland Teen Survivors

Today it was reported that an entire website has been started with the express purpose of trolling and hating a teenage shooting survivor who has dared to call for more gun regulation. It is only the latest of a long list of such attacks by Conservatives and pro-gun forces against him and the other teens who survived the Parkland shooting....

If a person survives a plane crash, then publicly calls for better air safety, do people attack their character? What about if their child dies in a building fire and they advocate for better building codes? Or their friend dies in a multi-car crash so they call for better speed enforcement?  What is the response from lawmakers and pundits?  Usually it is very understanding.

Are any of these survivors lambasted as "soulless liars"? Or compared to Hitler? Or told that they should be learning first aid instead of talking out? Or pronounced that they should have been smacked more as children? What sort of person says such awful things to victims, survivors, or their families?

And what if they are saying these things about child survivors who saw dozens of their friends killed and injured, and had to run past their bodies to escape? 

Yet I see this all the time when the issue is gun violence-related. Survivors and victims are ignored by the Conservative gun-loving crowd ... until they call for sensible regulation to keep the shootings from happening again.  And then the gun crowd comes out shooting, so to speak, attacking the character of those survivors who dare to speak out.  The right-wing hate machine starts up.  It happened to my friend Colin Goddard after he survived the Virginia Tech shooting and advocated for stronger laws.  It happened to Lucy McBath after her 17 year old son, Jordan Davis, was shot to death and she called for justice and change. It happened to David Wheeler, who lost his 6 year old son in the Sandy Hook shooting and testified for change. And so on....  Anyone who speaks out about gun violence and calls for change is immediately trolled, smeared, and threatened. It's even happened to me.

Sadly, we are seeing it again.  This time, they have come out to troll and hate on the survivors of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.  The fact that these are children makes the attacks even more pitiful.

These teen survivors are brave, well-spoken, and passionate, and we need to respect them, not tear them down.

There have been so many attacks on these teens by the far right that I've started to lose track. So I decided to make a sort of laundry list of them, here, though it is by no means complete (for instance, I didn't bother going to all the pro-gun blogs to see their reactions) and is just a sampling.  Read them and tell me if this is a sign of an intelligent reaction. When the facts don't support the extremists, they resort to name-calling, conspiracy theory, and outright hate speech.

How have the teens handled it?  Far better than many adults would. In fact, I'm impressed how they cope with the constant attacks and remain focused on the need for change.  In the words of teen survivor David Hogg, when asked what he thought of the attacks on his character and the conspiracy theories:

“I don’t care,” Hogg said. “I don’t. I have bigger, more important things to focus on than these stupid conspiracies that aren’t true in any way, shape or form, have no validity, and don’t hold their weight. At all … these people are going to keep trying to take us down but that’s how we know what we’re doing matters … whenever someone tries making a change that matters, and a change for the better, there’s always someone that tried stopping them.” 

And the teens have been wildly successful in their effort: The nation's largest-ever one-day march and rally; State legislation pushed forward; Conversations on gun violence in nearly every living room. Their passion, honesty, and progressive attitude is very much at the heart of it all.

Here's the list I have so far (which I will update when I find more), more or less in chronological order, of some of the major attacks on the Parkland teens. As you can see, a great many of them target Emma Gonzales and David Hogg, the two most outspoken teens:

• A GOP staffer, and many more extremists after him, falsely declared that teen survivors Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg are "crisis actors" who weren't at the shooting, aren't students at Douglas, and are merely acting the part of survivors. The conspiracy theory may have started on online bulletin boards, but soon spread, even by Donald Trump, Jr.  Then NRA board member Ted Nugent echoed the "crisis actor" conspiracy theory.
• A far-right journalist called teen survivor David Hogg "clueless," a "pawn" for the FBI and "anti-gun" forces, and coached into saying what he has.
• A far-right blogger suggested the Parkland teens are too mentally undeveloped to have an opinion on gun violence or any matter of political importance.
• An ex-GOP lawmaker and Trump campaign organizer accused the teens of having been "hijacked" and coached by left-wing groups and are unable of organizing their own movement.
• NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch accused the teens of being "too immature to make policy about firearms" and being used by "pro-gun control organizations."
• Former GOP senator Rick Santorum suggested that the teens should take CPR classes instead of focusing on gun violence, in essence blaming the teens for their friends' deaths because they didn't know first aid. The students and others pointed out that CPR cannot save a shooting victim, as it will not heal bullet wounds or stop bleeding.
• A fake photo was created and spread of teen survivor Emma Gonzalez tearing up a copy of the
  
  Constitution and making her look pale and dark-eyed. The actual image was of her tearing up a shooting target, as part of a photo shoot with other Parkland teens.
• A GOP congressman and his team mocked teen survivor Emma Gonzalez and her Cuban heritage.
• A GOP representative compared the Parkland teens to Hitler Youth.
• FOX News commentator Laura Ingraham mocked teen survivor David Hogg on Twitter for having been rejected by some colleges, citing a far-right online publication that did the same. Hogg retorted by calling for companies who have ads during her show to boycott the program. The outcry forced an apology by Ingraham and at least a week off the air. To date, at least 17 companies have pulled their ads from her program. (update 4/13/18: now up to 26 companies)
• A GOP candidate called teen survivor Emma Gonzalez a "lesbian skinhead" and David Hogg a "bald-faced liar."
• TV star and Trump supporter Roseanne Barr tweeted a doctored photo of teen survivor David Hogg that suggested he was giving a Nazi salute. After being called out on it, she deleted the tweet.
• NRA board member Ted Nugent once again commented on the students, calling them "soulless" liars and "mushy brained." After a backlash against him for his statements, Nugent doubled down on his statement, once again saying they have "no soul," and said his critics were engaging in "hate speech" against him and were "dishonest, lying idiots."  (see Nugent's own history of hate speech and other deplorable behavior, HERE).
• Internet rumors were spread accusing the Parkland teens, or even Emma Gonzalez specifically, of "bullying" the shooter, suggesting they were to blame for the shooting.
• Michael Flynn, Jr. (the son of the Trump cabinet member who pleaded guilty) tweeted the teen survivor David Hogg wasn't "smacked" enough by his parents as a child, after Hogg refused Laura Ingraham's apology.
• A Conservative pundit wrote that teen survivor David Hogg needs a "rhetorical spanking" and called him a "bully" and "dictator."
• A far-right journalist called the Parkland teens "demagogues" who are "making our public debate even more poisonous and less civil."
• An NRA spokesman and YouTube star taunted the teens by saying "no one would know your name" if the shooting had never happened or if the shooter had been killed by a guard, and that their story would be "completely and utterly ignored."
• A website was created for the purpose of trolling teen survivor David Hogg, created by a conspiracy theorist tied to the infamous hater, Alex Jones, the conspiracy site Infowars, and the anti- and fake-science site Natural News. The trolling webpage, which I won't link here, is filled with name-calling, conspiracy theory, and vitriol against this brave teen.
• A GOP candidate for the Massachusetts House and current county commissioner, Ronald Beaty Jr., has attacked David Hogg with a Twitter rant (after blocking Hogg), calling the boy "inept", a "twit", an "insect", a "clown", an "opportunistic rat", "a communist pig", a "fascist wannabe", and a potential "drug addict or worse." And he's made fun of his name, calling him "HoggBoy and "The Hoggster." It should be pointed out that Beaty served time in a federal prison in the 90's for making death threats against President H.W. Bush, Sen. Ted Kennedy, and others, and as a result cannot own guns himself.
• A Conservative TV show host on a Sinclair station posted a tweet threatening to "ram a hot poker up David Hogg's ass." He was subsequently forced to resign from the network.
• Multiple far-right bloggers spread false information in an attempt to make people think that David Hogg was not actually at the school at the time of the shooting.
• The new NRA president, Oliver North (remember from the Iran-Contra scandal?), accuses the Parkland teen activists of being "civil terrorists" and suggests they are oppressing NRA in the same way that racists oppressed blacks during the civil rights movements of the 60's.

This sort of hatred, trolling, and conspiracy theorizing isn't just rude and disgusting, it's dangerous. Weak-minded (and armed) people who listen to this may believe it and act out violently as a result. It's happened plenty of times before (remember the "Pizzagate" shooting?).

I think you can see how toxic these extremist Conservatives are to their own cause.  I applaud the Parkland teens for their courage, and thank them for trying to make a new trajectory for our communities and nation away from gun violence.

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A List Of Incidents Caused By Legal Gun Owners On School Grounds

-- THIS POST IS UPDATED AS NEW INCIDENTS ARE FOUND --

Every time there's a school shooting, the NRA and pro-gun forces come out of the woodwork again to say that schools, as "gun free zones," are targets for shooters, and that arming teachers and school staff is the only way to insure safety.  It's the myth of the "conceal carry hero" made into a school drama.

This lunacy came to a peak after the Sandy Hook shooting, when, after shameless silence, the NRA's Wayne LaPierre stepped up to the microphone and shocked the world by actually suggesting arming all schools, a move that was soundly rejected as insanity by nearly every national organization representing parents, teachers, and law enforcement, as well as the citizens of Newtown, and has no merit with any historical context, including when it failed to stop the Columbine shooting. Since then, the idea has been floated many times, including by various GOP legislators, extremist gun groups, and even President Trump after the massacre at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. States like Florida, Tennessee, and Mississippi have introduced bills to follow through with this. And a handful of school systems have decided to do it, including here in Oregon. Legislators have even tried to encourage armed vigilantes to prowl school grounds in return for tax credits.

Two different studies (HERE and HERE) have shown that armed guards in schools make students feel less secure, possibly affecting their academic performance. Not that student perceptions really matter to the pro-gun forces trying to make these decisions.

But could they be right? An analysis by Everytown found that there was an average of two school shootings at K-12 schools every month between 2013-2015. A more recent examination for 2018 by Everytown found an average of one school shooting every 63 hours. With all those school shootings, shouldn't there, by now, have been some good examples where armed civilians other than police have stopped a school shooting? 

Well, no, actually. There has never been a school shooting stopped by an armed teacher or a citizen conceal-carry owner. The closest case I ever found was of a school staff member (and Army reservist commander) who went out to their car and got a gun, but the shooting was over by that point, the shooter was out of ammo and was driving out of the parking lot (the only reason he was stopped was that the shooter crashed his car, allowing the staff member to get to him and hold him under arrest).

However, there HAVE been plenty of cases where gun owners, legally carrying guns on school grounds, have CAUSED incidents on campus, including incidents that wound children, other adults, or themselves.

Here is a list of those incidents that I have found, which will be updated as I find more.  So far, it is up to TWENTY SEVEN incidents, resulting in the wounding of five children and five adults. Sixteen incidents were caused by police officers or security guards.

• August 19, 2019: The district transportation director in Sparta, Ohio, who was allowed to carry a loaded, concealed handgun on campus as part of the district's conceal carry plan meant to "protect" students, left her gun in her desk unattended for around 30 minutes while she went to the bathroom and the nearby high school. A first grader found the loaded gun and pointed it at another student. No charges were filed and no one was fired, though the director was removed from the conceal carry program and was suspended without pay for three days.
• October 5, 2018:  A security guard at Somerset Academy Bay School in Kendall, FL, left his loaded gun in the bathroom. A fifth-grade child found the gun and immediately notified administrators at the school office. The guard was fired, but no charges were filed.
• May 23, 2018:  A parent visiting a classroom an Early Childhood Center in Pittsburgh, PA, when a 3-year old reached into her purse and pulled out her loaded handgun. Luckily, the child was stopped before pulling the trigger. The woman was charged with possessing a weapon on school property and four counts of recklessly endangering another person.
• April 18, 2018:  A parent visiting a school in Gladstone, Oregon, for a volleyball tournament left their loaded revolver in a bathroom stall. Luckily, a coach found the gun before any children, and turned it in to police. The owner had a conceal carry permit.
• April 4, 2018:  A county sheriff left his loaded backup handgun in the stall of a middle school gym bathroom in Shepherd, Michigan. A sixth-grade boy found the gun and reported it. Luckily, the gun was not handled.
• March 13, 2018:  A teacher and reserve police officer was giving a class on gun safety in his high school classroom in Seaside, CA, when he unintentionally fired his gun toward the ceiling. Bullet fragments wounded a 17-year old boy in the neck. Other students were injured by debris falling from the ceiling.
• March 13, 2018:  A school resource officer unintentionally discharged his handgun inside an Alexandria, VA, middle school. Luckily no one was injured.
• February 28, 2018: A high school social studies teacher in Dalton, Georgia, barricaded himself in a classroom and fired a shot from a handgun. Luckily, no one was injured, and he was taken into custody. He had a history of mental problems and violent behavior that had led, at one time, of having his guns removed.
• February 5, 2018: A police officer was at an elementary school in Maplewood, MN, "building relationships" with 3rd and 4th graders when one little boy reached over and pulled the trigger on the officer's holstered handgun. The gun fired into the floor. Luckily, no one was injured.
• September 13, 2016:  A school teacher at Cumberland Christian School, in Chambersburg, PA, left a loaded, unsecured handgun on a toilet in a bathroom. Four children, ages 6 to 8, went in the bathroom before one of the children reported the gun. Luckily, none of them fired the gun.
• February 19, 2015:  A school resource officer at Western Wayne School District in Pennsylvania unintentionally fired his handgun in the school.  Luckily, no one was injured.
• September 11, 2014:  A teacher was in the bathroom of a school in Taylorsville, Utah, when she unintentionally shot herself in the leg with her own handgun.
• January 18, 2014:  An armed security guard left his weapon unattended in the bathroom, fully accessible to K-8 students, despite being a retired police weapons instructor.
• January 18, 2014: Two police officers serving as school resource officers decided to clean their guns while on the grounds of an Akron, Ohio, high school. One of them unintentionally discharged his gun. Luckily, no one was injured.
• October 24, 2013:  A police officer left his loaded AR-15 assault rifle strapped to his motorcycle while visiting an elementary school.  A boy pulled the trigger, firing the weapon and leading to a shrapnel injury of three kids.
• August 24, 2013:  A SWAT police officer was giving a presentation at an elementary school in Lodi, California, when a 6-8 year old boy fired the officer's holstered gun, hitting the officer in the leg.
• May 15, 2013:  A Winchester, PA, police officer boarded a special needs school bus to calm a student. After the officer sat next to him, the child reached over and pulled the trigger on the officer's handgun, discharging a round into the bus seat and floor. Luckily, no one was injured.
• May 14, 2013:  A school staffer with a conceal carry permit was offering a ride to a student, in the parking lot of a high school in Aurora, Colorado, when he unintentionally fired his legally concealed handgun, hitting the student in the leg.
• April 16, 2013: A Boy Scout troop leader, who was also a retired police officer and conceal carry permit holder, dropped a fanny pack containing his gun while attending a scout meeting inside a Des Plains, Illinois, grade school. The gun discharged, striking him in the leg. No one else was injured.
• March 6, 2013:  A recently-started armed resource officer program at schools in Highland, New York, was suspended after one of the security guards unintentionally fired his weapon in school.  Children were present, but luckily no one was injured.
• March 1, 2013:  During a conceal carry training class, on school grounds, which was part of a new program to arm school staff, a school maintenance worker who was a student in the class unintentionally fired his weapon, wounding himself in the leg.
• January 17, 2013:  A charter school in Lapeer, Michigan, decided to start having an armed guard on campus.  Three days after hiring a guard, the man left his weapon in a school bathroom where kids could have found it.
• October 8, 2012:  A man with a concealed handgun visited an elementary school classroom in Moore, Oklahoma, to help the teacher with her computer.  His gun fell out and he left without it, only realizing it was missing after the media reported it.  Small children were present in the room at the time.
• March 22, 2012:  A volunteer track coach at John Mall High School in Walsenburg, Colorado, unintentionally shot himself in the leg with his new .40 caliber Glock handgun, nearly bleeding to death.  He was in his vehicle in the parking lot of the school sports complex.
• December 8, 2011:  A janitor with a conceal carry permit was working on ceiling tiles in a preschool classroom in Waterbury, Connecticut, when he took off his gun belt.  He then left the loaded gun in the classroom and forgot about it. Monday morning, teachers came in the room and found the gun, only moments before 3- and 4-year olds entered the room.
• September 12, 2011:  An armed security guard, patrolling schools at night in Salem, Oregon, unintentionally lost his loaded firearm somewhere during his rounds.  The gun was never found.
• May 12, 2011:  A school resource officer was cleaning his gun, while in the school building, and unintentionally fired the gun. The round went through the wall and into the nurse's room where there were two student, the nurse, and another adult. Luckily, no one was injured.

[By the way, this list doesn't include shootings by adults who are simply behaving badly on school grounds, such as arguments in the parking lot, like this one, this one, or this one, or shootings by children who bring guns to school. The list would be FAR longer. Instead, this list just focuses on "law-abiding" school staff, teachers, security, or anyone else who might be expected to protect kids with their guns, as the NRA argues.]

I urge you to save this list. The next time you hear a pro-gun supporter suggest that guns in school is a good idea, whether it is from a legislator, school board, or some gun guy off the street, please show them this list and challenge them to show you a comparable list of incidents that support their side. They'll come up with crickets. 

February 28, 2018, Dalton, GA

And you might also remind them that school shootings have been stopped by school staff... unarmed.  Like this one, who said "If I had had a gun on me, we'd have all been dead." There's also this one and this one. 

The idea of arming school teachers and staff is wrongheaded and flies in the face of the facts and common sense. Instead of turning our classrooms into guardrooms and our schools into fortresses, let's work to keep guns out of the wrong hands in the first place with better, common sense gun regulations.


ADDENDUM (5/7/18): A related article citing 30 incidents by armed adults at schools, collected from the Gun Violence Archive.

The Stoneman Douglas High School Drama Club Performs "Shine"

On February 21, one week after the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, a town hall meeting was held to discuss the issues of gun violence reduction and how they related to the shooting.

It was an emotion-charged event, where students and teachers confronted legislators and the NRA, face to face, on the issues.

At the end of the event, though, was this moving musical tribute, where members of the Stoneman Douglas High Schooll Drama Club, some of whom lost friends during the shooting, performed an original musical performance, entitled "Shine"....




"You're not gonna knock us down / We'll get back up again / You may have hurt us but I promise we are stronger and / We're not gonna let you win / We're putting up a fight / You may have brought the dark / But together we will shine a light," the chorus says.

It is chilling and amazing. If only we didn't have to have events like this, so that memorial songs like this wouldn't be needed anymore.

National ASK Day

Today, June 21, is National ASK Day.  Asking Saves Kids.  Please visit Ceasefire Oregon Education Foundation's page for information on ASK.

As responsible parents, we must ask the difficult questions for our children's safety when they visit a new place for the first time:  Will there always be someone with them?  Are the medicines locked up? Are there guns in the home?

And if there are guns, how are they stored?


I am happy to say that, for the second year in a row, Kitty Piercy, Mayor of the City of Eugene, Oregon, and member of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, has proclaimed today as ASK Day for the city.  See below for the proclamation.

HERE is a previous blog post with some relevant statistics about children and guns.  For instance:

1 in 4 kids and teens whose parents own guns say they have seen or touched a gun without their parents’ knowledge.

Almost 90 percent of accidental shootings involving children are linked to an easy-to-find, loaded handgun in the house.

88% of the children who are injured or killed in unintentional shootings are shot in their own homes or in the homes of relatives or friends.

HERE is a previous blog post that compares parents' perceptions about guns in the home compared the reality shown by statistics.  It's shocking how underestimated the danger is.

Kids and guns don't mix, but if you feel you must allow it, then please insure that those guns are locked up, out of sight, and unloaded.  Talk about the issue and the danger.  And always ASK about guns where your children visit!

School Lockdown Drills Are This Generation's "Duck And Cover"

Yesterday my 10 year old daughter had another Lockdown Drill at her school.

An email announcement went out to us parents from the Principal, a few days before.  From the email:

During our drill on Friday, an intercom announcement will inform staff and students that the drill will begin. Staff will then be asked to secure their classrooms. Teachers will lock classroom doors, close the blinds, move students away from the windows, turn out the lights, and ask students to remain quiet. The drill will last about three minutes, at which point another announcement will be made that the drill is over.

And when the time came during class, the teacher locked the door and turned off the lights, and the kids had to huddle in the corner, absolutely quiet and still while they imagined an armed madman walking the halls of their school.  The teacher explained to them that, if the windows above them were shot out, it would be a harmless shower of safety glass cubes that could not cut them.  Then, he practiced walking quickly and orderly out the back door of the classroom, across the school grounds, and to a staging area in the neighborhood across the street.

The last time my daughter's school had a lockdown drill, she was in an after-school activity with a mixed-age class of kids, mostly younger than her.  Many of them were confused and started to cry, traumatized by the image in their mind of an armed lunatic coming toward their room.

This is the new normal in America.  It is practiced in my daughter's school at least as many times a year as fire drills, and more even than earthquake drills.  My 11 year old son had a drill in his school the week before.

But as traumatizing as this is, it is an increasingly-necessary precaution taken by schools.  Since our federal politicians continue to do nothing at all to keep guns out of the hands of murderous madmen, schools are left to pick up the difference, preparing their staff and students to fight for their lives or hide in darkened corners, or to follow the NRA's suggestion, highly-opposed, to make an armed camp out of our children's learning environment (which hasn't turned out so well for some schools).

Just this last week in the town of Springfield, Oregon, not far from where I live, Riverbend Elementary had to go into lockdown.  Police had gotten a tip that a convicted felon, high on meth and suicidal, was armed with a gun and headed to his child's school.  The school responded with the lockdown.  Luckily, police intercepted the man.  He was armed with three firearms in his car.

Two days later, in Salem, Oregon, three schools went into lockdown for 45 minutes, including South Salem High, Howard Street Charter Middle School, and Bush Elementary schools, when there was a shooting in the streets nearby.  One man was injured in the shooting.

A few days before that, two schools in Portland, Grant High School and nearby Beverly Cleary School, went on lockdown when two men were openly carrying semi-automatic assault rifles next to the schools.  

And, of course, we can't forget the Umpqua Community College shooting a couple weeks ago.

From Everytown's interactive map of school shootings
since 2013 (HERE).

Remember the "Duck and Cover" movement of the 1950's and '60's?  A whole generation of school children were asked to imagine a nuclear bomb hitting their little American towns and cities.  They were told that, if there was a big flash or a little warning, they were to immediately take cover under their desks and wait for an all-clear signal.  In their minds, they could imagine a nuclear bomb exploding and a massive fireball washing over their schools, burning them alive.  Nowadays, it's not a specter of a giant bomb killing them, but a more personal, and realistic killer walking their halls.  It's happened 150 times since 2013!  See an interactive map of them here.  And school shootings are increasing.

The Trace did a study of lockdowns and found an astonishing 100 school lockdowns (not drills!) in just a two-week period.  From the article:

[A]t least 100 lockdowns made the news during those two weeks. That’s an average of about 10 lockdowns due to a potential threat per school day. Of the 10 school days tracked, only one was incident-free."

And that's just the ones reported by media, that they could find with their searches.

Video capture from the ALICE training video shown to students.

School systems are now making videos and programs to teach students and faculty how to respond in the event of an active shooter incident.  One video, from an Ohio school system, even suggests that the students attack the shooter if they come in the room.  See it HERE.  It teaches the ALICE program (which stands for "Alert-Lockdown-Inform-Counter-Evacuate"), which is being taught in a number of schools and colleges around the nation.  The video, which is shown to students, shows a man with a handgun enter a classroom and the teen students attacking and swarming over the man, holding him down, all the while stating, "If it is necessary to counter the aggressor's attack, you may be able to distract and disrupt the aggressor's plan by putting him on the defensive and possibly even disarming him by swarming him into submission until police arrive." One student gets shot and goes down before the other students dogpile the shooter.

That's right, they are recommending that child students attack the shooter if cornered.

It's not enough now that school kids have to worry about grades, homework, tests, relationships, sports, and all the usual things that kids have to think about.  Now we are asking them to think about cold-blooded killers stalking their halls, and potentially having to fight them to the death!

This has to end.  The answer isn't to arm every teacher, faculty, or even students, as the gun lobby has suggested, or to turn our schools into fortresses.  The answer is to keep from arming the lunatics in the first place.  And the only way to do that is to pass sensible gun laws, such as universal background checks (like the one enacted this year in Oregon), better mental health reporting to the background check system, child access prevention (CAP) laws to keep guns out of the hands of school kids, and a renewed ban on assault rifles and high-capacity ammo magazines.

Perhaps, if we pass such laws, lockdown drills at our schools will become a nightmare of the past, like "Duck and Cover" became, and we will find a new trajectory for our schools and communities away from gun violence.


ADDENDUM (10/21/15):  One pre-K school teacher from Virginia describes what it is like during a lockdown drill with her small students, trying to convey urgency without inciting fear or alarm, and the mental considerations that she has to endure as part of the process.  From the article "Rehearsing for death: A pre-K teacher on the trouble with lockdown drills":
:

Instead of controlling guns and inconveniencing those who would use them, we are rounding up and silencing a generation of schoolchildren, and terrifying those who care for them. We are giving away precious time to teach and learn while we cower in fear.

.

Survivor Story: Liz Hjelmseth

Today we have a guest post from Liz Hjelmseth, who, as a child, survived being shot by her brother.  Below is her survivor story and how the event has changed her life.  She now works to help prevent other such shootings as an organizer for her local Moms Demand Action chapter.

Liz Hjelmseth as a child

I was 8 years old the Halloween my brother shot me in a fight over my cat. As I hopped off to the bathroom to die in the bathtub, thinking it would be easier for my Mom to clean up, he followed behind me apologizing and telling me he didn’t mean to do it. That was the very last time words were ever passed between us about the shooting. 

We went into shock together but luckily my sister was home and she knew what to do. Miracles happened that day, living through it was the one I cherish the most. Me living through it, my brother living through it and my family living through it. All of those miracles were not a given the moment my teenaged brother, who was not thinking straight because of a flash of anger, went to another room got a gun that was improperly stored, lifted it in anger, pointed it hastily and pulled the trigger.

Extraordinary measures were taken to keep me alive. I slept through most of that. I woke days later to hear the story of my shooting, the story that would be repeated over and over, the one my brother and I knew was not true. The story was my brother was playing with a gun he didn’t know was loaded, it accidentally went off, striking me. So to the world it was playing and accidental, something we can all have a good laugh about and a shrug of the shoulder and go on. Playing is fun right? Accidents are not worthy of our scrutiny because they are no one’s fault they are unpreventable. No one ever asked me what my version of the story was and I didn’t offer it.

That story most likely held us together as a family and for that I will be forever thankful. The story did have consequences though. I think about the little me going off to bed every night, never able to sleep very well, always afraid someone was going to kill me. My parents would repeat over and over, “No one is going to kill you Lizzy. Why would you think that?” Maybe because every night I had to go to bed knowing the person sleeping in the room next to mine did try to kill me, but we never spoke those words. During the day I could live the story but at night, when your brain leaves you open to truths, I could not keep faithful to the story and so I stayed awake, holding vigil. I held vigil for 22 years until I couldn’t do it any longer. I gave my version of the shooting at age 30 to my family. The healing started and it continues today. The shooting has been re-categorized as a terrible thing that happened, still with very little fault.

What I have come to realize is accidents don’t happen with guns. Guns have one purpose, to kill, and so if you pick one up and handle it carelessly and it does exactly what it is designed to do there is no accident. If you are an adult that leaves guns lying around and a child gets one and shoots themselves or someone else that is no accident, you are at fault.

Next time you hear the news anchor say these words, “A child was accidentally shot today…” know there are no accidents. There is a story that child and family will live but that story is no accident.