Bulletproof backpacks. For children.
Bulletproof.
Backpacks.
That’s an actual product you can purchase. I know this to be true because after the most recent school shooting…
Wait.
Read that again.
“The most recent school shooting.”
School shootings happen so frequently in our country that we’ve come to refer to them as “the most recent.”
Back to the original point – after the most recent, heartbreaking, tragic, terrifying, life-ending school shooting, I began searching for gear to protect a little friend who is soon to begin kindergarten.
I thought this to be a practical solution to an impossible problem.
It isn’t.
It’s not the job of a five-year-old child, or any child for that matter, to protect themself from gunfire at school, or anywhere. Protecting children and protecting each other is our job. Collectively.
So, what’s the answer?
I don’t claim to know, but I do know that the answer couldn’t possibly be “nothing.”
How are we impacting our children as they practice active shooter drills at the place they are meant to be building the foundation of their education? How are these drills and shootings impacting our children’s ACE scores?
We’ve got to try something. Anything. What if we asked Denmark? What if we consulted Australia? What if we looked at their models and saw the plummet in gun deaths after government buy-back programs? What if we gave just one thing a try?
We’ve got to do something because nothing has proven time and time again not to work.
Our children deserve better.
We deserve better.
Peace.
Laura Fogarty
Editor, Ask Lala
Laura Fogarty writes “Ask Lala” for the Stop Abuse Campaign. She is a mother, an advocate and the author of two children’s abuse prevention books: I’M THE BOSS OF ME! and WE ARE JUST ALIKE!
Authors express their own opinions which do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Stop Abuse Campaign.
Published by the Stop Abuse Campaign
