Guest column by Caitlin Robinett Jachimowicz: School shootings should be a rallying cry that unites us

Published in the March 7 – 20, 2018 Issue of Gilroy Life

Caitlin Robinett Jachimowicz

I was a senior at Live Oak High School on September 11, 2001. Like many of you, I remember that day vividly. I remember the look on Dad’s face as we watched the news together as United Airlines Flight 175 hit the southern tower at the World Trade Center. I remember the teachers who tried to stay strong for us. And I remember that someone draped American flags on the overpasses in Morgan Hill.

For that all too brief time, we were united as a country. No matter how flawed our response in retrospect, we came together. We grieved together and wanted justice together. We wanted justice for the 3,000 souls lost, 6,000 injured, and we wanted assurances that it wasn’t going to happen again. George W. Bush’s approval rating soared to 90 percent in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. But that always happens when we feel vulnerable in times of war or violence, we focus on what makes us the same, what makes us Americans.

That hasn’t happened in the slow, prolonged attack on America’s school children. A day after the Parkland, Fla., school shooting, statistics are rolling in. The Washington Post reports 150,000 students have experienced a school shooting since Columbine in 1999. The New York Times reports that there have been 239 school shootings in the time since 20 elementary school children (and six adults) were killed in Newtown, Conn. Parkland’s 17 souls can be added to the 138 who have been killed in school shootings in the past five years.

But when researching these statistics, I found even the numbers are politicized. We are wasting breath arguing on what constitutes a mass murder, rather than focusing on the fact that we all agree that it’s happening too often. Imagine what it must feel like to be the parent of a student who was gunned down in school, only to be told that your child’s death shouldn’t count because they were the “only” one killed. Our newsfeeds are filled with blame and political jargon instead of Americans reaching out to each other with compassion and to come up with solutions. No one is hanging flags in memory of the victims or writing patriotic songs. I understand that this threat isn’t coming from the outside, it’s a sickness we have within America, but it’s one I believe Americans are strong enough to fight.

There isn’t going to be one bill, or law, or theory that is going to fix us. We need a comprehensive approach that addresses all the underlying causes of this epidemic.

No matter your political affiliation, or what you believe is the cause of the upward trend of school shootings, I am willing to bet you are probably right. Because issues like this one are huge and complex.

We need to look at our policies on civilians with assault rifles, how to better address warning signs, the mental health of our young men, better parenting and community support, depictions of violence in the media, and the security of our schools.

There’s never just one reason. It feels like we have been slowly under attack over the course of years, and but it hasn’t been enough to shake us awake. It’s time for us to start finding our common ground to decide how we will conquer this issue as a country, together.

I hope you’ll join me in encouraging our elected officials to put aside political differences and start listening to each other. And I hope in our own conversations, we are willing to do the same. We are all frightened, grieving, and yearning for solutions to all of the underlying causes of this prolonged and painful national tragedy. Nothing should be off the table in these conversations. The very survival of our children, and the future they represent, depend on it.

Caitlin Robinett Jachimowicz is a Morgan Hill City Councilmember an attorney and a mother. She wrote this for Life Media Group and Gilroy Life.