On March 27, a Monday, at a little after 10 a.m., a 28-year-old individual used a firearm to shatter the exterior glass doors of The Covenant School, a private preschool through 6th grade, Presbyterian-affiliated parochial school near the Green Hills neighborhood in Nashville. The shooter then climbed through the broken doors and entered the building. Surveillance video of that entrance, released by Nashville police, can be seen on YouTube.
Gunfire shattering the school doors begins 26 seconds into the video. The perpetrator killed three 9-year-old students and three adults, including two school employees and a substitute teacher. Police arrived within minutes. The shooter died in an exchange of gunfire with officers. In the approximately 15 minutes between entering the school and the confrontation with police, the shooter fired 152 rounds.
Thoughts and prayers flowed in from Washington, D.C., and statehouses across the nation.
Fourteen days later, on April 10, another Monday, at a little after 8:30 a.m., a 25-year-old man walked into the Old National Bank at 333 East Main Street in downtown Louisville, not far from the waterfront. Armed with a rifle, he open fire. Four people, all bank employees, died in the building. A fifth victim, also a bank employee, died later at a hospital. Police arrived within minutes and, in a harrowing exchange of gunfire, killed the shooter, who also was a bank employee. Video of that exchange, released by Louisville police and edited for public viewing, can be seen at https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/active-shooter-louisville/?id=98470141. Eight people were injured, including three police officers. Officer Nickolas Wilt, 26, suffered a serious head wound. Wilt was new on the job, having graduated from the police academy on March 31.
Thoughts and prayers again flowed in from Washington, D.C., and state houses across the nation.
The news from The Covenant School and the Old National Bank jarred me, but it didn’t jar me as violently as it should have. I am ashamed of this. But like you and possibly everyone else across the Commonwealth and the nation, I have become slightly numb to the news of shootings, even those involving children. It is an involuntary self-defense mechanism. This doesn’t lessen my shame but helps to control my outrage and steady my emotions.
The killings qualified as mass shootings because there were more than four victims, not counting the shooters. According to the Associated Press, The Covenant School outrage was the 15th mass shooting at a school or university in the United States since a pair of students killed 12 of their fellow students and a teacher before turning their guns on themselves at Columbine High School in Colorado in April 1999. School shootings at Kentucky’s Heath High School (1997) and Marshall County High School (2018) aren’t officially counted as mass shootings because, as horrid as they were, the death count (three at Heath and two at Marshall County, both near my home) did not reach the mass shooting minimum.
According to the Associated Press, the Old National Bank shooting was the 15th mass shooting in the United States this year. Five days after that tragic event, a shooting in Louisville’s Chickasaw Park left two dead and four wounded—not technically a mass shooting but nonetheless devastating.
It’s obscene that we must think about such things.
Mass shootings aren’t restricted to schools and banks, of course. They happen in churches, grocery stores, hospitals, nightclubs, synagogues … it’s a long list.
I have no simple solution for this ongoing, uniquely American nightmare, but it’s no secret that guns and gun rights are near the crux of the issue. I say this as a firearm owner and a proponent of gun rights. I have colleagues who say with absolute conviction that guns are not the problem. I agree. Guns in and of themselves are not the problem. But guns are part of the problem. And while in some quarters it might risk political suicide to even broach this untouchable subject, the political unwillingness to acknowledge and attempt to deal it is costing lives. And it’s intolerable. Shamefully intolerable.
I have no solution. But I am also not an elected political leader charged with helping govern the state or the nation. I do not believe that arming teachers or looking toward a good guy with a gun are any more reasonable solutions than wrapping oneself in the Second Amendment and waving the flag or erasing the Second Amendment in hopes of creating a gun-free utopia.
So, we must look to our political leaders for answers, which will be neither simple nor popular. Those answers will come at a political cost. But they must come because currently our elected officials are failing us. Failing our children. Failing our future. Some share more burden of the failing than others, of course, but everyone who is elected to lead, to help solve problems, to draft laws, to keep us safe is failing us. All of them. It is absolute bipartisan failure. A few of our elected folks have resorted to finger pointing and name calling. If the stakes were not so high, the consequences not so deadly, this childish, buffoonish behavior would be laughable. But it’s not laughable. I don’t care what political color you are or which, if any, political party to which you adhere. This inaction is shameful.
Will this be politically easy? No. Will it cost political careers? Possibly. Will continued inaction cost lives? Absolutely.
Blood spilled at The Covenant School, Louisville’s Old National Bank and Chickasaw Park, Heath High School in Paducah, Marshall County High School—from Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut to Uvalde, Texas; Parkland, Florida, to Las Vegas; and hundreds of horrific scenes splatters the political landscape and the people in the seats of power. We’re stained, too. Shame on our leaders for their inaction. Shame on us for tolerating such.
Readers may contact Gary Garth at editor@kentuckymonthly.com