Guest Opinion | Suzanne York: Our Children Deserve Classrooms, Not Combat Training

Another ordinary day in America. Children were bussed and walked to school with their parents and friends. Moms and dads kissed their kids goodbye as they excitedly reunited with their friends and teachers. Laughter echoed across the asphalt playgrounds as the bell rang and kids lined up with their teachers to engage in another day of learning.

Then, shortly before 1 p.m., came the gunfire.

Another community shattered. More families received phone calls that would change their lives forever. More children witnessed unimaginable violence. How much more do we need to know before we impose much stricter gun laws? At what point do we stop calling these tragedies “unthinkable” when they have become so horrifyingly predictable? Every time another mass shooting occurs, the debate begins again. Politicians offer thoughts and prayers. Familiar arguments are repeated. News cameras move on. Then another community joins the ever-growing list of places forever marked by gun violence.

This is not simply a matter of bad luck or individual misfortune. It is the consequence of public policy. The larger question behind America’s continuing debate over firearm laws is not whether the Constitution protects the right to own guns. It does. The question is whether stronger firearm laws save lives.

The evidence increasingly suggests they do.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, firearm injuries have become the leading cause of death for children and teenagers ages 1 through 19 in the United States, surpassing motor vehicle crashes. No other developed nation accepts this grim distinction as the price of freedom. Supporters of stronger firearm laws point to universal background checks, waiting periods, safe-storage requirements, restrictions on high-capacity magazines, Gun Violence Restraining Orders, and limits on assault weapons as proven ways to reduce suicides, accidental shootings, domestic violence, and homicides. Research consistently shows that states with stronger firearm safety laws generally experience lower firearm death rates among children than states with weaker regulations.

Critics argue that these laws burden responsible gun owners while criminals ignore them. But that argument ignores a simple reality: every law is violated by someone. We still require driver’s licenses, regulate dangerous chemicals, inspect buildings, and enforce speed limits because reasonable laws reduce risk and save lives. Firearms should not be the lone exception.

America also has a serious mental health crisis. We need far greater access to counseling, early intervention, family support, and treatment for young people struggling with depression, trauma, anger, or violent thoughts. But mental illness alone does not explain why the United States experiences levels of gun violence unlike any other developed nation. Other countries struggle with mental illness. They experience bullying, social isolation, family conflict, and emotional crises. What they generally do not have is the same extraordinary access to firearms, particularly weapons designed to kill many people in seconds.

Studies have found that children and adolescents in states with stronger firearm laws, particularly laws requiring firearms to be stored securely and preventing children’s access, tend to have lower rates of firearm-related deaths. The findings vary by the specific law and outcome studied, but several peer-reviewed studies support an association between stronger protections and fewer deaths.

The sentencing in late July of Colin Gray, the Georgia father whose son murdered four people at Apalachee High School, underscores another uncomfortable truth: these tragedies are often enabled by adult decisions. Months before the shooting, authorities investigated threats made by his son. Despite those warnings, the teenager was given access to the assault-style rifle used to kill two students and two teachers. A jury found the father criminally responsible for helping make that tragedy possible. That verdict sends an important message. Adults who recklessly place deadly weapons into the hands of children should be held accountable.

But accountability after children have been murdered is not enough. We must prevent the next tragedy before it happens. That means confronting one of the greatest failures in our nation’s firearm laws: the continued availability of military-style assault weapons and ghost guns. No hunter needs them. No homeowner defending a family needs them. No civilian needs the ability to manufacture an untraceable firearm from a kit or a 3D printer, bypassing the safeguards that govern virtually every other gun purchase.

The same applies to ammunition. A firearm without ammunition cannot kill. Comprehensive firearm policy must address not only who may purchase firearms but also how easily people, including those legally prohibited from possessing them, can obtain the ammunition that makes those weapons deadly.

None of this is an attack on responsible gun ownership. Millions of Americans safely own firearms for hunting, sport shooting, and self-defense. Rights deserve respect. But rights have always existed alongside responsibilities and reasonable limits.

As a retired elementary school teacher, one of the saddest changes I witnessed during my career was the normalization of lockdown drills. Children who should have been learning to read, solve math problems, paint, sing, and dream about their futures instead practiced hiding silently behind locked classroom doors. Teachers quietly wondered how they would shield twenty or more frightened children if a gunman entered the building.

We have asked children to prepare for mass murder because adults have failed to prevent it. That should outrage every American, regardless of political party. Our children should never accept active-shooter drills as a normal part of growing up. They deserve classrooms, not combat training. This debate is too often framed as a choice between confiscating every gun or doing nothing. Those are false choices. Reasonable people can support the Second Amendment while also recognizing that no constitutional right is absolute. We regulate speech that incites violence. We regulate automobiles, prescription drugs, hazardous chemicals, and countless other products capable of causing great harm. We can do the same with firearms. NATIONWIDE.

Universal background checks.

Safe-storage laws.

Waiting periods.

Strong red-flag laws.

A ban on assault weapons.

A ban on ghost guns.

Greater accountability for adults who provide firearms to dangerous individuals.

These are not radical ideas. They are common-sense safeguards designed to keep weapons of extraordinary lethality out of the hands of those most likely to misuse them. The shooting that killed three children, ages 5, 8 and 11, and a teacher and injured another child and a second teacher on Oct. 15 at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon will soon disappear from the headlines. Another tragedy will replace it. Then another. And another.

The measure of a society is not how eloquently it mourns after innocent people are killed. It is what it does to prevent the next funeral. We already know enough. The question is not whether America can do more to prevent gun violence. The question is whether we finally will.

Suzanne York is a Pasadena resident and a retired Pasadena Unified School District teacher.