Why are gun rights more important to some than the right to turn 10?
American children live in a world unimaginable to those of us who grew up in previous eras. Even though kids now experience active-shooter drills and may have heard about tragedies that have occurred somewhere else, most parents probably don’t believe their children will experience gun violence firsthand.
It was an ordinary day in early spring when a Tennessee community was confronted with the agonizing realization that this time the horror and pain hadn’t been visited on some distant community. This time it had happened in their city, at their school, to their own precious children.
There was a time before. Back then, sending a child off to school didn’t require tamping down agonizing “what if?” thoughts.
My favorite photo taken during our son’s childhood was snapped at a water park party celebrating his 9th birthday. Eight little boys jostle one another, grinning and mugging for the camera. Each of them appears as full of joy and energy as any living creatures could be, much like puppies at the peak of their adorableness.
I wonder what the morning of March 27 was like in the homes of some other 9-year-olds: William Kinney, Hallie Scruggs and Evelyn Dieckhaus. What did the kids eat for breakfast that Monday? Did someone have time to make pancakes or scrambled eggs or did the children sit down to frozen waffles or cereal? Did a parent check to make sure each of the children put their homework into their backpacks? Did their families, like most, hurry a bit to stay on schedule? Was there time for a hug and kiss as those cherished children headed out of their homes for the last time?
What we know for sure is that Will, Hallie and Evelyn died in terror on the second floor of the Covenant School. We don’t know where the killer encountered the three children or who among them was the first to die. Those questions and more must endlessly haunt all who loved those children.
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Evelyn’s family shared that the talented little vocalist was to have sung “What a Wonderful World” in a performance that week. Instead, Vince Gill sang that song at her funeral. Young Will was excited about starting the baseball season, when he was to cover infield for the Crieve Hall Reds. Hallie, the youngest child and only girl in her family, was a soccer player and known to hold her own among her three brothers and four male cousins.
I’m grateful our own children got to grow up and live their dreams and that they experienced childhoods unshadowed by gun violence. Their lives were not shattered by a demented murderer who, on a sunny Monday morning, blasted into an elementary school, stalked human prey and then somehow looked into three pairs of beautiful, innocent eyes and soullessly annihilated all they were, all they would have been.
Why do the people in our society who have the capacity to take action to prevent tragedies like the Covenant School shooting do nothing or, God forbid, do worse with senseless laws that undeniably guarantee more horror, anguish and fear?
People in their 60s at a small Christian school on a cool spring morning have a right to their lives. So do all the 9-year-olds alive today. Surely their right to just live, to celebrate another birthday, to grow up, to experience all this precious life has to offer eclipses the meaningless right to acquire machines for mass death, to look cool in a Christmas card photo or to rack up more votes from a “base” whose own opportunity to experience gun violence firsthand may come sooner than they can imagine.
Katherine Willey, a former banker and university instructor, is a community volunteer in Nashville.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville shooting made 'what-if?' real. But gun laws remain unchanged
