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Mass Shootings
School Shootings: What Do We Owe the Grieving?
Clearly, we're not doing enough for the grieving or school safety.
Posted March 7, 2023 Reviewed by Ekua Hagan
Key points
- There have been 70 mass shootings so far this year, according to one report.
- Society has responded to mass shootings with added security measures while ignoring the fact that the threat often comes from an insider.
- Individuals can make a difference in the shooting epidemic by reaching out to kids in crisis and linking them to mental health services.
As we try to find our footing on the issue of mass shootings, let’s keep in mind the wisdom of Holocaust historian Yehuda Bauer: “Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.”
“What’s up?”
That’s what I usually asked my online students, from across the country and beyond, to check in and find out what was top-of-mind. Sometimes it was a snowstorm headed their way, celebratory feelings of a project going well, or a mishap that caused a sleepless night. But this week, several women mentioned the aftermath in their communities from the latest school shooting at Michigan State University, where three people were killed and five were injured.
Having not heard about this, yet another tragedy, feelings of disgust ignited as I felt my limbs lose to gravity in extreme tiredness. I responded, “Not another one! When will this nightmare end?”
Instantaneously, a video of a male high school student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida in 2018 arrived by text message. Looking straight into the camera shortly after the shooting, he said to the media and to us, “We’re just kids. Somebody do something!”
Later, I reviewed an article I had written about the Stoneman-Douglas shooting shortly after it happened. I admitted at that time to what we mental health professionals call “compassion fatigue.” But seeing these kids, who had not been born yet when the Columbine School shooting happened in 1999, move so quickly to anger and social action, I felt a glimmer of hope that the outcome of this shooting would be different.
When their protest signs indicated their sophistication with the issue—“Guns don’t kill people, legislators do!”—I was encouraged that they weren’t going to go along with the usual “this isn’t the time to talk about it” message that had prevailed after previous mass shootings. I’ve followed their national efforts to end gun violence through their March for Our Lives organization these past five years, and in a recent interview with one of the leaders, now about to graduate college, learned that they, too, are extremely tired.
Our efforts so far have not been enough
There have been 70 mass shootings so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, and only eight days in January without one. No wonder we’re exhausted and in despair. As for my feelings, I relate to what Emily Dickinson once said: “The dyings have been too deep for me, and before I could raise my heart from one another has come.” We have an epidemic on our hands.
By now, it’s clear that the "somethings" we’ve been doing have not been enough.
Looking through the lens of fear, we have purchased scanners and locks, armed guards, and cameras, ignoring the fact that most often the threat comes from an insider. The father of the Michigan State shooter said that his son had become increasingly angry since his mother’s death in September 2020, rarely leaving his bedroom. It sounds like he fits the profile of despair, isolation, and most likely self-loathing that authors Julian Peterson and Hames Densley developed from their database of every mass shooting since 1966, and every shooting incident at schools, workplaces, and places of worship since 1999. In their book, The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic, they conclude that mass shootings are violent suicides, designed to be the final act of a person whose self-hatred turns against a group, often in a quest for vengeance, fame, and notoriety. Mass shootings are contagious because troubled people study and copy from others what they observe on social media and learn through news reports.
Taking effective action
So, what can we do? What are “the actions we owe to those grieving,” as President Biden put it? We want to act, but we want our actions to be effective, to restore a sense of safety for ourselves and our children as we go about our lives in public spaces, schools, shopping malls, group gatherings, and public spaces of celebrations.
Actions suggested by Peterson and Densley related to firearms include safe storage of firearms, background checks and waiting periods to purchase firearms, closing the loopholes that exempt sales at gun shows, state red flag laws that remove firearms temporarily from people when they are in danger of harming themselves or someone else, and the training and resources needed to implement these procedures.
Actions that more directly involve all of us, parents, teachers, friends, and neighbors, are the need to reach out to kids in crisis and link them to mental health services, ideally in their school settings. If potential shooters telegraph to those around them their misery and sometimes even their intentions, as Peterson and Densley maintain they do, we need to promote some version of, “If you see something, do or say something.” As grief coach and author Hope Edelman suggests, “Validating and supporting the bereaved at the time of loss is not just the compassionate thing to do, it’s a necessary investment in the collective good.”
If you or someone you love is contemplating suicide, seek help immediately. For help 24/7 dial 988 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, or reach out to the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741. To find a therapist near you, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
