An American School Prayer
The tragic events at the Minneapolis church Wednesday marked a violent start to the school year in America. I have watched coverage on the news, and read a number of opinions on the internet. School shootings are part of the larger issue of mass shootings, and I would suggest that we can prevent other mass shooting events. But a sad reality is that there is no single, easy answer, as the only realistic solution will take time.
In 2021, psychologist Jill Peterson and sociologist James Densley published “The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic” (Abrams Press, New York). They are the founders of the Violence Project, which was the first database of mass shootings in the United States. More, they conducted research, including to interviewing living mass shooters, surviving victims, and others to find patterns that suggest several modes of prevention.
The authors point out that locked doors, which may keep non-students out, do not address the reality that most school mass shooters are students, already inside the schools. Potential mass shooters walk among us everywhere. The goal is to keep them from having guns. While the majority of gun owners are in favor of keeping guns away from “at risk” individuals, the same as a majority of non-gun owners, there are some who advocate for no regulations and for no guns. I think that, no matter if one agrees or disagrees, the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted Amendment 2 several times. We need to recognize that is the current reality, unlikely to change in upcoming decades.
A landmark case is the District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), although there are others outlining current Constitutional Law. The reality is that Amendment 2 allows for citizens to own firearms, but can allow for some restrictions. Thus, to reduce school shootings by keeping guns out of schools, we should avoid the extremes, and focus on the common sense steps that the majority of Americans can agree upon. These would not include arming teachers – a sure path to increased injuries and death – or restricting citizens from having a shotgun for hunting or home security.
President Lyndon Johnson said that “we must change to master change.” For example, the structure of family systems has changed to fit the needs of the current economic system. The extended family system of agricultural society gave way to the nuclear family with industrialization. That, in turn, gave way to the single parent family that high-tech society encourages. (There are also “mixed family systems” common today.) In each change, children had a decrease of support in their home lives, and society began to place more and more responsibility for parenting on schools.
Another important change is the internet. It is accurate to say that while there are benefits to the information highway, there are risks associated with it. Obviously, as every parent knows, it has changed the primary mode of communication among children and teens. But, as Dr. Gary Brucato documents in “The New Evil: Understanding the Emergence of Modern Violent Crime” (Prometheus Books, 2019), the internet has changed violent criminal behavior. (Dr. Brucato defines “evil” in the same non-religious sense that Dr. Michael Stone did, meaning the crimes everyone finds sickening.)
I recently spoke with Dr. Brucato about family systems issues relating to the case of Brian Kohberger, who butchered four college students in Idaho. Since “true crime” coverage has an increasingly wide audience, people are now aware that this individual displayed alarming behaviors in the university he was attending to get his Ph.D. in law enforcement. One professor was on record saying if he got the degree, he would use his position to become a violent sex offender. More, his behaviors were escalating.
The system failed to take meaningful steps, opting to take away his funding as a teaching aide. Even then, some worried that might result in a law suit against the college. I am not pointing a finger of blame towards the university, because educational systems currently are handcuffed when it comes to such situations by bureaucracy. But it might have been good if the law school professors had approached local police and discussed the troubling escalation in Kohberger's behaviors.
That same system of bureaucratic inertia played a role with the young man drove from Conklin to Buffalo in 2022 to commit a mass shooting at a supermarket. There had been information before that indicated that he was at the highest risk level. While certainly not all, or even most, people who have risk factors will commit violent crimes, virtually every mass murderer shares many of them. And around fifty percent – higher among younger murderers – will have “leakage” prior to acting out. “Leakage” is the behavior, including in conversations and/or writings, that others find more troublesome than usual. There are frequently precipitating events, that are followed by hints the person is considering taking their own life.
Dealing with these issues will require a long, dedicated effort. It starts in the home, and spreads to the school and community. There are often precipitating events, followed by periods where the person considers taking their own life. It cannot include politicians offering “thoughts and prayers,” identifying it as an exclusively mental health issue, while cutting the funding for community-based services. It cannot include include pretending that rational gun laws are an all or nothing issue.
As surely as the sun coming up in the east, we can anticipate two things. First, as the felon has unleashed madness in America, there will continue to be more mass shootings, including at schools. Second, next year the maga party will continue to campaign on identifying the Democratic Party as being “no guns.” It is high time we take a more comprehensive approach, that the majority of Americans understand and agree with.