Drills

They were called retention drills. A terrible high pitched siren would ring in our elementary school and once we heard the piercing shrill sound we were to duck and cover,going under our desks and covering our heads, cause if the atomic bomb fell this would protect us.  Or we had fire drills, not as shrill as the retention siren, these were one or two second bleeps and immediately we were to form a straight line, and walk into the hallway standing directly against the wall, with one hand on that wall to help guide us to the nearest stairway and exit. When I was a young kid in the 50’s our fear were the “Commies”, or smothering from the flames of a fire. On Thursday another shooting took place on a college campus, and the college kids interviewed spoke about how they never thought their Active Shooter Drills they complied with in elementary school would come into play now that they were in college. Active Shooter Drills to learn how to cope with a crazy person and his or her gun. 

In this nation the answer to gun violence is to do nothing about gun violence and pretend that if more people owned a gun there would be no need to be afraid of gun owners. We are told in this nation that good guys with guns will solve the problem of gun violence. Recently a good guy with a gun shoot two innocent citizens while they sat in their car. Their car was being car-jacked and the good guy with a gun was not so good with his aim and shot the wrong people. Good guys with guns have let their guns loaded of course in arms reach of their children who emulated their good guy parents only to shoot their own good guy siblings. In this nation as is usually the case paranoia, inconsistent facts, and somehow Jesus always play into never really making things better, but instead complicating any attempt to solve a problem.

My kids are in their 30’s, I have no idea how I would feel knowing that while in school they are either learning about Active Shooter Drills, walking through metal detectors, or being taught by a teacher who is packing heat. I have no idea, as a parent of school aged kids how I would respond to my children when asked do you think that someone might come to our school like they did in Columbine, Sandy Hook, Aurora and now Rosewood and shoot us? I would have no idea how to answer the question Mom, Dad, should I learn how to shoot a gun to defend myself while in school? One more shooting, can’t wait to hear how the Jesus loving, Pro life, Evangelical Christian T-Bagging Fascist NRA card carrying politicians try and blame this on Obama, Hilary Clinton or those socialist looking progressive Democrats. One more shooting and I am sure we will ring our hands as we do so well, sigh a deep heave of sadness, swear this will be the last time we let this happen, and then tune into 24 news coverage a day, two weeks, or a month and witness yet one more mass killing. America the beautiful indeed!