Wednesday’s active shooter training had McCaskey students abuzz with opinions. Two weeks after a Michigan school shooting killed four high schoolers, and in the wake of multiple shooting threats in our own community, fear of a school shooting is at the forefront of our minds once again. This has reignited debates about how to best prepare for a school shooting, and the ethics of said preparation. 

America is notorious for our avoidance and propagation of societal ills. Instead of getting to the root of problems, we invent distractions and propose reforms that stop the wound instead of preventing the injury. Often, these baby-step measures are lucrative for corporations, further reducing the incentive to provide substantive solutions to the crises we face. Gun violence is no exception to this pattern. While the true cause of gun violence is an overabundance of guns and lack of strict gun regulations – for every 100 people, there are 121 guns in circulation, and in Colorado, 1 in 5 high schoolers has easy access to a gun – the media often promotes red herring arguments, citing violent video games, mental health issues, and liberal laws passed by supporters of police reform as the culprits. And instead of investing our time, money, and resources into reducing the availability of guns, we’ve opted for a band-aid: active shooter drills.

There’s significant evidence that these drills cause trauma, exacerbate mental health problems, and there’s no evidence to suggest they increase preparation. According to a report published by Everytown in conjunction with Georgia Institute of Technology’s Social Dynamics and Wellbeing Lab in September 2020, active shooter drills are linked to increased levels of depression (39%), anxiety and stress (42%), and physiological health problems. A 2018 study by the Pew Research Foundation found that 57% of teenagers are worried about a shooting at their school – and rates of mental health disorders are skyrocketing among our generation. 

When we examine the rapid proliferation of active shooter drills – they were conducted by 40% of public schools in 2007 up to 95% in 2017 – it’s important to consider economic motivations. In a capitalist society with very few regulations, new goods and services pop up whenever there’s a market for them. The school security industry has churned out everything from bullet-proof whiteboards to transparent backpacks, but it’s hit the jackpot with privately run active shooter trainings. 

The largest for-profit private provider of these trainings in the U.S. is the ALICE Training Institute, which has come under fire for extreme tactics and encouraging teachers and students to confront gunmen. ALICE, which is an acronym for alert, lockdown, inform, counter, and evacuate, pioneered the “proactive” approach to school shootings, suggesting that attempting to take down the shooter is what will save your life. Its training techniques are startlingly realistic. In January 2019, a group of teachers at Meadowlawn Elementary School in Indiana were subjected to a mock execution by ALICE-trained police, who shot plastic pellets into their backs, causing bleeding and welts. Many schools employ the “run, hide, fight” strategy, which was originally designed for the workplace. 

Violent trainings and the promotion of the idea that children should be heroes contribute to the rapid adultification of our most vulnerable and likely motivate devastating self-sacrifices. In April 2019, a gunman infiltrated the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and a campus wide message included the instructions “Run, Hide, Fight.” 21-year-old Riley Howell charged at the gunman and was killed. A month later, during a shooting at STEM School Highlands Ranch in Colorado, 18-year-old Kendrick Castillo was killed after lunging at the gunman. And anecdotal evidence indicates that Tate Myre, a 16-year-old star running back who was one of the four victims of the recent shooting in Oxford, Michigan, attempted to take on the shooter. 

Children should come to school to learn math and reading, not how to take on murderous gunmen.

As a culture, we have to reckon with how to balance preparation and ethical practices. Gun violence is a significant threat to our children’s safety. But traumatizing kids and forcing them to grow up too quickly is a violence in and of itself that distracts from the real problem: not inadequate preparation, but guns themselves.