Rightly assuming the worst

On Friday, I found myself walking down the hallway of my school, minutes away from picking up my students at Spanish class, when I heard over the intercom:

“Hello? Hello?”

It was unlike any announcement I have ever heard in my 25 years of teaching. The voice was unknown to me. It was abrupt. It  wasn’t proceeded by something like, “Excuse the interruption” or “Could I have your attention?”

It almost sounded confused.

So I turned, quickened my pace, and headed for the office.

My thoughts, in order, were this:

1. How did a student get hold of the intercom?
2. That wasn’t a student. That was a man’s voice.
3. An angry parent has somehow gotten hold of the microphone.
4. Someone dangerous is inside the school.

As I crossed through the lobby, I saw two of my colleagues. One was emerging from the library, looking concerned. “Matt?” she asked.

“I’m checking,” I said. No other communication was needed. We were both thinking exactly the same thing.

A second colleague appeared at the doorway to the cafeteria, also looking worried. “Did you hear that?”

“Stay there,” I said. “I’m checking.”

Then I quickened my pace, thinking that if something bad was happening in the office, I would want to be moving fast to surprise anyone waiting inside.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but my hands were already bunched into fists.

As I turned the corner and entered the office, I saw one of our secretaries, standing by her desk, looking relaxed and talking. A few more steps inside and two men came into view – technicians dressed in uniforms, working on the intercom system.

I slowed down, stopped, then turned around to let my colleagues know everything was okay.

It took me more than an hour to finally calm down and relax.

Later that day, another colleague said, “Did you…” and I replied, “Yes,” already knowing what she was going to say.

I was right. “Did you hear that announcement and get worried?”

My reaction, and the reaction of my colleagues, was not the result of a mental health crisis in America. It wasn’t because of the absence of armed guards in our schools. It wasn’t born from any failure of our educational system.

The reason I reacted as quickly and with as much concern as I did is because of the gun problem in America today. I worried – not without justification – that someone might have entered our school with a firearm. And had someone done so, would we be surprised given the number of school shootings and mass shootings in 2023 alone?

Or the number of shootings in just the last two weeks of innocent people who turned into the wrong driveway, knocked on the wrong door, or mistook a car in a parking lot for their own?

In retrospect, I probably should’ve called 911, despite looking foolish later on for doing so.

Still, was I unjustified in thinking the worst?

Firearms are now the number one cause of child and teenage deaths in our country, outpacing motor vehicle accidents, cancer, substance abuse, and every other injury and disease.

In 2020, 4,357 American children died as a result of a gunshot.

In that same year, Canada lost 48 children to firearms. So, too, did France. Australia, Germany, the UK, and Japan lost 38 children combined as a result of firearms.

Gun violence is a uniquely American problem in a country that outpaces every other nation on the planet in gun ownership by a wide margin. The United States, with less than 5 percent of the world’s population, has 46 percent of the world’s civilian-owned guns.

America is awash in firearms. We shouldn’t be surprised that thousands of children die every year because of bullets tearing their bodies apart.

Please don’t get me wrong:

I support the Second Amendment. I have no problem with Americans owning firearms. I think that hunting, recreation, and home protection are all valid reasons to own a weapon.

My problems are simple:

• The legality of assault, semiautomatic, and automatic weapons
• A lack of universal background checks
• A lack of nationwide red flag and extreme risk laws
• The existence of stand-your-ground and castle doctrine laws
• The existence of open carry laws
• The fact that wine coolers, strip clubs, casinos, and rental cars are more regulated than firearms

Here’s the good news:

Every single one of my problems with firearms in America today could be corrected in a week if the collective political body in Congress could find the intelligence, decency, and will to change our country for the better.

Even better, the majority of Americans share every single one of my beliefs.

A majority of Americans support a ban on assault weapons. They support universal background checks by a wide majority. A majority of Americans want stand-your-ground and open-carry laws repealed. And a vast majority of Americans are in favor of firearms regulations that limit the sale of weapons to those deemed safe to own a weapon.

All of these things could get done in a week if Congress cared to do so.

Simple legislation could make our country a safer place to live while maintaining Americans’ Second Amendment rights.

Until then, teachers will continue to see an adult walking across the playground, hear an odd announcement over the intercom, or watch a car drive slowly past the school and sadly, perhaps rightly, assume the worst.

Kids will likely do the same.