John C. Clark / AP
Willow Crawford, left, and her older sister Ava, right, join friend Kaylynn Vestre, center, in expressing their support for Richneck Elementary School first-grade teacher Abby Zwerner during a candlelight vigil in her honor at the School Administration Building in Newport News, Va., Monday, Jan. 9, 2023. Zwerner was shot and wounded by a 6-year-old student while teaching class on Friday, Jan. 6.
Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023 | 2 a.m.
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Nine days ago, a bullet fired by a gun in the hands of a 6-year-old boy passed through a 25-year-old teacher’s chest. Though unlikely to face criminal charges, that child will grow up with the guilt and stigma of knowing that he intentionally shot another human being. And a classroom of first-graders will grow up trying to navigate the long process of healing from the trauma of watching a beloved teacher nearly killed by a classmate.
This is not supposed to happen. Not in the United States. Not anywhere.
Boys that age are supposed to be sneaking a piece of candy and blowing dandelion seeds into the wind, not sneaking their parents’ piece and blowing away their teacher.
Moreover, he isn’t even the first one. Children young enough to remain excited by meeting Santa Claus are regularly bringing loaded guns to school.
As The Washington Post documented last week, in the past 23 years there have been 11 school shooters under the age of 10.
Most of the shootings are unintentional. Prior to this month’s shooting in Virginia, there was only one documented case of an intentional shooting committed by an elementary-age child on school grounds.
But that points to another disturbing reality: There are now so many loaded and unsecured guns in the United States that elementary schoolchildren regular stumbling upon them and shoot other children accidentally.
According to the advocacy group Everytown For Gun Safety, nationally in 2022 there were at least 301 unintentional shootings by children resulting in 133 deaths and 180 injuries. That’s an accidental shooting by a child 5-6 times a week and a death every three days.
We’re not talking about freak accidents that occur due to an entirely unforeseeable series of events. These are shootings that occur because loaded guns — tools designed to kill quickly and efficiently — are left accessible to children with such alarming frequency that entirely preventable deaths are instead guaranteed.
In the Virginia school shooting, the weapon was purchased legally by the shooter’s mother and as far as the state of Virginia or federal government knew, the mother was one of the law-abiding gun owners who would have been “punished” by reasonable efforts to regulate guns in the United States. She may have even considered herself to be one of the “good guys” with a gun.
Except she wasn’t.
Her failure to be responsible and exercise even the most basic care put a loaded weapon in the hands of a 6-year-old and led directly to a traumatic, life-altering tragedy. She exercised such extreme negligence that she should be prosecuted.
Second Amendment absolutists see the world as a binary: good guys with guns and bad guys with guns. They can’t imagine the idea that one of those good guys with a gun might secretly be a bad guy, become a bad guy down the road, or be sufficiently negligent as to leave a gun laying around for a bad guy — or in this case, a child — to pick up.
For gun-rights advocates, gun owners are all law-abiding citizens with the right to own a firearm of their choice … unless they’re not. And if they’re not, then they’re clearly and obviously a criminal that society can easily identify and give access to mental health care.
The truth is more complicated. Everyone starts life as a law-abiding citizen — a good guy … until they’re not.
All of us come into the world without a criminal record, wanting to believe that we’re the hero of our own narrative. It’s impossible to identify who among us will be the next school shooter, mass murderer or simply the next irresponsible parent who leaves a loaded gun accessible to a child. It’s only after we’ve been caught committing a violent crime that current law even begins to consider limiting our right to carry a weapon of death and destruction.
By then it’s too late.
Children have watched as their teachers and classmates have been gunned down in front of them. Intentional or not, the damage is done and American society has once again failed.
Both Congress and the Nevada Legislature are beginning new legislative sessions this year. Reasonable gun control should be a top priority.
While Nevada took positive steps in the previous legislative session, there is more to be done. Currently, Nevada law does not require new handgun models to include childproofing features to prevent accidental shootings.
Nevada also has few restrictions in place to keep guns out of the hands of irresponsible gun owners. Despite requiring background checks, current law does not require all gun dealers to be licensed by the state and allows gun sales to proceed while background checks are still ongoing. People convicted of hate crimes, stalking, domestic abuse and violent misdemeanors such as assault are not prohibited from gun ownership. And there is no requirement to inform law enforcement when a prohibited person attempts to purchase a gun.
These are all simple, reasonable and common-sense gun regulations that can help keep guns out of the wrong hands — including our children’s hands. We cannot afford to continue to fail.
