By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on September 5, 2024
An Editorial Opinion
Yesterday, a 14-year-old student at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, Georgia shot and killed two teachers (Richard "Ricky" Aspinwall and Christina Irmie) and two students (Mason Schemerhorn and Christian Angulo). The shooter, Colt Gray, also wounded nine other victims at the school.
Gray used an AR platform-style weapon in this mass shooting. Shockingly, Apalachee High School, with an enrollment of 1,900 students, did NOT have metal detectors for security purposes on its campus.
Gray surrendered when he was confronted by a school resource officer. He now faces murder charges, for which he will be tried as an adult.
Georgia is a National Leader in Book-Banning
Georgia is No.12 out of the 50 states that implement book bans in public schools. Georgia jumped into the thorny thicket of book-banning after state lawmakers passed Georgia's SB 226 in 2022, which gives school principals 10 days to address requests to remove a book and determine its obscenity
The Barrow County School Board publishes this statement on its website regarding books: “Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled, 'This could change your life'.”
There is nothing in the “School Safety” portal of the Barrow County School Board’s website that educates parents, teachers, and students about: (a) the dangers of active shooters in school, (b) protocols for deterring and/or dealing with active shooters on campus, (c) lockdown plans during mass shootings on campus, and (d) in-school “early warning” public safety programs to minimize the occurrence of school shootings.
For those who claim that making this life-saving information availaable to the public would somehow aid would-be shooters, I disagree. Preventive measures like the ones referenced above actually enhance the ability of K-12 students to survive a mass shooting incident.
Guns Kill Students; Books Do Not!
Each day 12 children die from gun violence in America. Another 32 are shot and injured.
Since the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999, more than 338,000 students in the U.S. have experienced gun violence at school. [Click here to read the list of deadly school shooting since Columbine.]
Yesterday, Barrow County School Board members saw for themselves that guns are far more dangerous than banned books. To my knowledge, no book has ever killed a K-12 student in America. Guns and assault rifles have slaughtered plenty of them.
No school in America has had to close its doors because “dangerous” books were in the library. Parents of K-12 students have never had to plan funerals and memorial services for deceased students because “dangerous” books killed them. No student’s life has been placed in jeopardy because of a “dangerous” book on campus.
The time, money, and resources that Barrow County School Board members and administrative staff personnel allocated to banning books could have been best spent studying and implementing the additional ways to enhance the safety of their K-12 students during an active shooter situation on campus.
The grieving relatives of the four deceased victims who were shot and killed yesterday at Apalachee High School do not want or need the customary “thoughts and prayers” of public officials who have repeatedly failed to keep their loved ones safe.
Moving forward, Georgia public officials should shift the time, money, and resources they allocate to book-banning into enhancing the public safety of their K-12 students.
Comments