We need strict gun laws to stop killings, says Paducah school shooting survivor
When news of another school shooting breaks, friends kindly reach out to see how I am doing. They want me to know they are thinking about me and praying for me. I always appreciate that outreach because on days like these I am not OK. I am far from it.
On the days following another school shooting, I am back in the lobby of Heath High School on Dec. 1, 1997. I am 14 years old again, lying prone on the floor watching blood spatter on the cold tile floor in front of me. I am touching the side of my head, bringing my hand down only to see blood – my blood – on my fingertips. I am once again realizing that I have been shot in the head. I am lying still and closing my eyes so I don’t get shot again because I remember the survivors of the Luby’s Cafeteria shooting in Texas saying they did the same thing. I am again saying what I think will be my final prayer and readying myself to die.
Then I suddenly accelerate 20 years into the future and see the same thing happening to other children in another school. With 11 school shootings having occurred in the first 23 days of this year, it’s happening with ridiculous and unacceptable frequency. Twenty years after the shooting at Heath, my heart breaks at the realization that for my children, active shooter drills have become as commonplace as tornado and fire drills.
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And now, I am angry. Angry that the only solution the party in control of our state and national governments offer to the problem of gun violence is thoughts and prayers – and more guns. Angry that the party in control of the levers of government will not take commonsense action to regulate guns and stop this horror show which now repeats day after day in grisly syndication.
I am angered by tweets from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell offering his thoughts to the families of Marshall County High School while taking no real action to solve the problem. It feels disingenuous coming from the same politician who gloated on Facebook via Internet meme that he stopped commonsense gun regulation attempts after 26 children and adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary.
I am angry that I have to watch our selfie-obsessed governor, Matt Bevin, basking in press conference coverage about the Marshall County High School shooting when I know that his only solution to gun violence in Louisville was that prayer groups walk the streets. I was shot while I was participating in a prayer group, governor, so what’s your Plan B?
The governor revealed that his Plan B is to blame pop culture and the media. It’s the same tired sermon that was preached 20 years ago after I was shot. Plan B is to ignore the fact that American pop culture is one of our chief exports to the world, yet somehow we’re the only country under a plague of gun violence. Plan B is to refuse to talk about guns when we talk about gun violence even though U.S. citizens own nearly half of all privately owned guns in the world. There are, on average, 89 guns per 100 people in the U.S., yet the governor won’t talk about guns in a conversation about gun violence.
Gun violence is not a problem unique to rural, urban or suburban America. Small, close-knit communities are not immune. It is everywhere and can affect anyone, and the toll gun violence takes on our children – children for which we share a collective responsibility – will continue to echo through the generations in this country unless we take action beyond offering thoughts and prayers.
We can start by strengthening and enforcing laws that keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers because 54 percent of mass shooters are linked to domestic or family violence. Kentucky should require background checks for all gun sales because 34 percent of mass shooters would have been prohibited from owning or possessing a gun if they had undergone a background check. While federal law requires background checks by licensed gun dealers, Kentucky lacks any law regulating private gun sales. We know that background checks make a difference because Missouri saw a 25 percent increase in its gun homicide rate when it dropped requirements for background checks and permits for all handgun sales.
Universal checks for gun buyers, bans on sales to known or suspected terrorists and a ban on gun sales to violent criminals are all gun safety laws that experts rate as some of the most effective changes we can make to prevent mass shootings. All are supported by greater than eight in 10 Americans.
Let’s get serious about solving this problem. Reach out to others who are taking this fight to those leaders who would only offer thoughts and prayers. Visit momsdemandaction.org to join with Moms Demand Action, an organization started by a mother who wanted a better future for her children. Visit its partner organization Everytown for Gun Safety at everytown.org to learn how you can do more than think about or pray for the survivors. Call and write your elected officials and demand solutions. We do not have to settle for being the only industrialized nation that repeats this daily ritual of carnage.
I am not OK, and the truth is I don’t ever want to be OK. I want to keep that lobby in my heart and mind as a reminder. I want the memory of that day to continue to be as raw and as brutal as it was on Dec. 1, 1997, until none of our children has to experience it for themselves. Our thoughts and prayers are not enough to stop this. I can’t sit still and wallow in this tragedy anymore. I have to act. And I hope you will join me.
Hollan T. Holm is an attorney who lives in Louisville with his wife and two children.