A Mommy Snark

Once again, I'm dating myself. Growing up we had fire drills. I had friends who would go through tornado drills as well because of where they lived. Today though, a friend of mine's kindergartener will go through a "bad guy drill" or a lockdown drill. What in the hell has happened to our society in which we need to run lockdown drills with our school children? I was in middle school when Columbine happened but still, we didn't run lockdown drills. I was a junior in high school when 9/11 happened, we still didn't run lockdown drills. I was a senior in high school and lived in between Baltimore and the District when the beltway sniper shootings were going on -- one of the shootings was roughly 15 miles from my school. Guess what, still no lockdown drills. Granted during those times when shootings did happen we were on lockdown, but we never once ran a lockdown drill. Or a bomb threat drill, even though we would have the occasional bomb threat, those sucked in the winter. Anyway, the point is, what the heck has happened to our society to warrant this extreme of a drill?

Please don't even start to say it's guns and access to guns because it's not. Harvard, a bastion of liberal higher education, even found that more guns does not mean more crime. And if you're still skeptical google Chicago's murder rate, and remember that they have some of the strictest gun control laws on the record. Also remember, thugs will get guns by any means possible. Law abiding citizens who go through the background checks and gun safety classes and all the hoops are the ones that are starting to be denied the right to defend themselves against the thugs who will get a weapon by any means necessary. Anyway, back to the lockdowns... I just get so frustrated by this because children shouldn't have to go through these drills. They should feel safe inside their schools. Clearly there are individuals who have greatly compromised this and that is sad. Instead of blaming guns, maybe we should look at the parents. Parents you need to be in your kid's business. Know what they're into, who they're talking to and if there's any indication that they could potentially put a school on lockdown. Laissez-faire parenting isn't parenting, it's a cop out. If you let your let's say second grader play Call of Duty with you, sit down and discuss the difference between shooting someone in a video game and shooting someone in real life. I know that sounds crazy, but I think sometimes these kids are so exposed to violence at such a young age that they become desensitized; and perhaps if they're young enough don't understand the difference between the violence in the movies and video games and that of real life. We also need to push responsible gun ownership and safety as well. A kid who learns to shoot at a young age needs to be taught that a gun is a weapon, it is to be respected and is not a toy. Glorifying a gun as a means to solve your problems, it is not. We need to get back to basics as parents and be concerned with how our children will turn out and not be so selfish 24/7.


**Note, I edited this post for clarity on 9/7/2013