The Boogeyman and Mommy-Dearest: A Deliberately Ridiculous Title

March 14, 2018 – In the predawn hours of the "17-minute walk out demonstration day", which we, having BEEN high schoolers, all know will turn into a full ditch day, I want to stress again some perspective. This is NOT to be shared with your small child.  This is to YOU people who are supposed to be grown ups.

The Boogeyman is Real: That is What They are Told

I will be as generous as I can be while still being honest and accurate. The fear being hammered into young people today is not honest and it is not in any way accurate.  It is horribly misguided at best and undeniably cruel. For this perspective, let's not just focus on the fatalities and not even the injuries but let's consider ALL the young people who are affected by a school shooting in their school -- even if they weren't anywhere near the actual trauma; even if they saw nothing at all. I know, had I been a high school kid when it happened at MY school, even if I SAW none of it, I would be deeply affected. I do not dispute that for one minute.

Lacking 2018 data I will use 2014 data for a count on how many young people are enrolled in school grades K-12 In the United States. We can presume that there are at LEAST that many in 2018. So using the 2014 numbers there are 55 MILLION students enrolled in schools grade K-12. An ongoing Washington Post analysis has found that 150,000 students attending at least 170 primary or secondary schools have experienced a shooting on campus since the Columbine High School massacre in 1999.

Doing the math, dividing 150K by 55 million we find that less than 1/3 of one-percent (0.2727%) of all students in the United states have been affected by school shootings since Columbine in 1999. It is horrific ANY time it happens. And yet it is NOT an epidemic in any way, shape or form. We have GOT to have perspective on this.

These young people are being damaged by the horrible fear tactics that they are being pummeled with; that are being hammered into them. Seven year olds are writing desperate letters to the president begging to be kept safe from a woefully overblown “threat.” That 7 year old has been lied to. These kids are not different from the kids of the 1950s who lived in constant fear of nuclear attack. That was a more likely reality than a school shooting.

Do you know what is TRULY insane? In the United States, about 500 instances of a parent killing one or more offspring happen every year, a fairly consistent pattern in the past 50 years, said Phillip Resnick, a psychiatry professor at Case Western Reserve University. Roughly 200 of the killers are "mommy." So on average 500 children are murdered by their parents EVERY YEAR. Going all the way back to 1982 an average of 31 people die every year in mass shootings (this is verifiable data source: MotherJones.com) -- this is all mass shootings, not just school shootings.

Should we tell young people to be deathly afraid of their parents the same we they are being told to be deathly afraid of the possibility of a school shooting? Should we tell that terrified 7 year old who wrote to the President, "Ah kid, you don't need to fear being shot at school, but now your MOTHER, she is another story! SHE is MUCH more likely to kill you!" No, that would be cruel and crazy.  It is our responsibility to support their feeling safe at home.  Why have we robbed them of the safety of school when it really IS exceptionally safe?  A child is safer at school than she is at home.  Let that sink in. The odds of them dying at the hands of a parent are substantially higher than at the hands of a school shooter.

These young people are being told TO BE VERY AFRAID when the risk is PROFOUNDLY low that they will ever be AFFECTED by a school shooting much less injured or killed by one.  The ONLY reason these young people are even affected NOW is because they hear about it and see it over and over and over.  If I see the same photo of one tragedy 100 times – I am much more traumatized by that one tragedy than I would have been had I seen it once or even a few times. Remember Saving Private Ryan’s opening scene? It was a half-hour crucible of hell on Omaha Beach.  I felt physically beat up after enduring that scene.  Had it lasted 3 minutes instead of 30, my reaction and visceral response would have been vastly different.  These kids see school shootings as this never-ending stream of violence when it is far, far from it.  At least Private Ryan was "only" 30 minutes; for these kids it is every single day.

How they are being hammered with "fear messaging" has got to be a huge source of damage to these young people. Young people are safer today than in ANY time in human history. I will go so far as to say this targeted fear-mongering is abusive for political gain; these kids are expendable pawns in a grown up game. I would be livid where I a parent of a school-aged child. Living in CONSTANT FEAR is no way to live and it sure as heck isn't an environment to learn in! The media and the extreme anti-gun lobby is conditioning these kids to be fearful. This truly is tantamount to convincing a whole nation of school-aged kids that the boogeyman is real.

It is tragic. It is cruel and it is 100% dishonest.