December 14, 2012 is a day I will never forget. I had taken the day off and was driving when I received a call from a colleague to tell me there had been a shooting. “It could be something or it could be nothing” she said. That’s pretty typical in the news business. But I had the same sinking feeling in my stomach I had experienced just five months earlier when I received a call at 4am telling me there had been a shooting at a movie theater near my house. I just knew in my heart that this was something big. In the weeks following the Sandy Hook shooting we learned just how big. 26 innocent lives taken (27 if you count Nancy Lanza). The shooting spurred a national debate about gun control, people started talking about mental health and parents across the country (myself included) hugged their children a little tighter. I had nightmares for weeks about shootings at my son’s school. I skipped our office Christmas party in New York because I could not bare to be away from him. While I cherished every moment with my family it felt like I was working nonstop covering the worst school shooting in our nation’s history.
I have covered every major news story in the last decade but this felt different because this time I was a mother and the kids who were killed were not much older than my son. I really started to think about how we as a nation could stop these senseless tragedies before more children -maybe even my own children- were killed. I do believe that we need stricter gun laws and better mental health services. I dealt with a family recently who called the police after finding a receipt in their son’s pocket for a semiautomatic weapon. He purchased it from the same Walmart he had threatened employees at before and his plan was to return to that exact same store and kill everyone in sight. He had spent time in a mental institution but not enough time to be put on a do not sell list. Nobody can convince me that he had a right to buy that gun.
I believe there is more that we as parents can do to help as well. We need to be involved in our children’s lives. We need to look out for warning signs. We need to teach our children to look out for others. And most importantly we need to make sure kids know it is not ‘cool’ to go on a rampage. These kids are crying out for attention. When they do not get it at home or from classmates they decide to do something drastic to get noticed. Kids like Adam Lanza idolize kids like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. They study what others have done and vow to kill more. They want everyone to know their names. Look at the Virginia Tech shooter. He made a video and sent it to the media so that his face would be broadcast around the world. I have talked with members of the Columbine killer fan group and am familiar with ‘Holmies’ who are obsessed with James Holmes. These kids idolize killers. They want to be famous too. We have to teach our kids that this is not ‘cool.’ Frankly, I think everyone in the media should accept Tom Teves’ challenge to stop using the names or faces of these killers in news coverage. But, as a member of the media, I understand it is part of the story.
I do personally know a school shooter. Mitchell Johnson walked into is school in Jonesboro, Arkansas when he was 13 and shot 5 of his classmates. He has basically been in prison ever since. He doesn’t think what he did was ‘cool’. He has regretted it every day of his life. He met with some of the victims’ families and knows the real impact his actions had on them.
School shooters are not ‘cool’. They are cowards. They are kids who are crying out for attention so let’s do everything we can as parents to make sure our kids know what Mitchell Johnson knows all to well: the victims are real people and taking a life will never make you ‘cool.’ Let’s make sure we watch out for warning signs and teach our kids to do the same. If they know someone that may have problems we as a community should get involved so my son can go to school without worrying that he may not make it home.
This year our family Christmas card says “Peace on Earth” and I hope we can learn from these tragedies and get a little closer to that in our own lives.