(Opinion) I don’t want to ever talk about “gun control” again.
But I want to talk about school safety every minute of every day until it is a reality in our country.
As long as the school safety debate is solely a debate about gun control, we will never make any progress.
Gun control is an issue — similar to abortion — on which people rarely change their minds because the opposing view challenges deeply held cultural, religious and moral beliefs that reach far beyond the issue at hand.
I can change my mind on the appropriate top tax bracket (39.5 percent? 37 percent?) without changing my entire worldview.
That’s not the same on issues like gun control.
When you ask your friend or colleague to consider changing their views on gun control, you are essentially asking them to change their entire worldview, and you are signaling to them that you do not share theirs.
Stop having this debate with this language. At this point in our culture and political landscape, it is useless.
What is not useless is an honest, constructive conversation about school safety because there is a widespread cultural, religious, moral agreement on this issue.
The vast majority of people will agree on the following cultural, religious, moral reality (and I’ll use the words of our president): “No child, teacher or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school.”
Boom.
There we go: a massive cultural, political agreement — from which we can build practical solutions.
I’ll make it a bit more personal. My wife should not have to cry when we drop our kids off at school because she feels like she’s put them in danger — by taking them to school!
I don’t claim to have the answers, but I do have some questions:
— Why are we comfortable with the reality that the vast majority of school shooters are the exact people everyone worried would be a school shooter? Why do we not have more sophisticated, aggressive counseling programs? Why is every school counselor overworked and underpaid? Why are we not providing a bigger, better social safety net to these — usually — easily identified, troubled young people?
— Why are most schools easier to get into than courthouses, capitols, jewelry stores, stadiums, airplanes and many other cultural institutions? I understand that metal detectors at the school door destroys innocence, but is that innocence really there anymore?
— Why are we calling the police to our schools after shootings begin? Every community with a school also has a police force full of dedicated officers who are trained to deal with these situations, contain and eliminate the threat and protect the victims. They always do so after the fact. Wouldn’t they love anything more than to be assigned, at various times, to protect our most precious resources at school?
— To my more liberal friends, why is there rarely a conversation about the first three above after a school shooting, and instead everyone goes straight to “gun control?”
— To my more conservative friends, are there conversations we can have about limiting quick access to military-style assault weapons that you are willing to engage in?
#SchoolSafety
Rip Andrews is a partner with the law firm of Marsh, Rickard & Bryan in Birmingham and a former communication aide on Vice President Al Gore’s presidential campaign in 2000 and Gov. Don Siegelman’s reelection campaign in 2002.
