I did the school run this morning dropping my seven year old son to his primary with almost 100% certainty that he will be safe.
He scooted in with his best friend, laughing as they compared their collections of Bakugan toys. Outside of our home, school should be the safest environment for him and his classmates.
It devastates me to know I can’t say the same for my 10 year old nephew.
He goes to primary in Texas, the state in which a sick and twisted teenager walked in and murdered 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School which teaches seven to 10 year olds. It’s the worst school shooting since Sandy Hook in 2012.
The pain those parents, carers and families of Uvalde are feeling is completely unimaginable.
As soon as I saw the words Texas school shooting, my heart started racing and I was immediately on the phone to my sisters.
Robb Elemenatry is 300 miles away from where my nephew goes to school in Dallas, in the US no distance at all.
And the massacre has left them all devastated and truly shaken.
“This is too much,” one of my sisters said in tears last night. “The thought he would want to hurt a child let alone murder children in cold blood is beyond me.”
It’s beyond all of us.
Naturally at times like this we hear from America’s leaders.
President Joe Biden wanted to know: “When in God’s name are we going to do what needs to be done?”
Vice President Kamala Harris said: “Enough is enough.”
But is it really? As long as America continues its love affair with guns, enough will never be enough.
Because no one is bold enough to take a stand, take decisive action, do what needs to be done, which is to ban these killing machines.
We’ve been here too many times before. Sandy Hook, Columbine, Santa Fe High School - America has learned nothing from these school massacres.
I travel to Texas to visit my immediate family at least once a year. I was there for Easter, the first time since the pandemic.
And I still can’t get over the sight of ordinary citizens, rather than phones clipped to their belts, walking around with guns on their waists instead.
Texas like many other states in America is an open carry state, this means people are legally permitted to carry guns in plain view.
For teenagers as young as 18 it’s perfectly OK, normal even, to go to the store to buy them.
What does any right minded 18 year old need with a gun unless they’re in the military?
My nephew has had to undergo training in what to do if a gunman attacks his school – he was only about seven or eight when I heard this was part of his school life.
Training includes practice where to run and hide. For goodness sake this is America not war torn Afghanistan.
My nieces too will grow up to have to undergo the same training. It’s heartbreaking.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has now called for teachers to be armed. A ridiculous suggestion.
Teachers got to school to teach and to nurture young children.
They don’t go to get into gun battles with cold blooded killers.
The idea that you fight guns with more guns is total fantasyland stuff.
If America wants to stop any more killings they will have to make every school a fortress, as hard to get into as the White House and station armed soldiers outside each and every one.
Or they could ban these weapons the use of which causes so much unbearable pain and devastation.
Everyday across America parents send their children to school.
How many can honestly say they know their children are truly safe and will come home afterwards?
Each day feels like a massive gamble. How long are they willing to gamble on the lives of innocent children?
