Borrowed Time and the Luck of the Draw

At five years old I learned an important lesson, that we all live on borrowed time. The summer before I entered kindergarten my father died from exposure to radiation and beryllium as a consequence of his work in a government research project. For my family, this was very bad luck. Even then, I knew all too well that life was a crap shoot.

Fortunately, during my thirty-six years as a teacher, I was blessed by good luck, and even now I feel like I won the lottery.

I taught in four different schools in two different states, and never once was I shot. Never did I have to see my own students slaughtered in front of me. Still, I did not fully escape the violence that permeates our society. I did have students who died violently outside of school, and those repercussions were painful enough.

I also have had images seared into my brain after the Columbine massacre in 1999. Our schools changed after that. The entrance door near my room became locked to outsiders, and no longer could my former students spontaneously dash into my room to tell me about their first semester in college. I had to attend grim faculty meetings where we were required to watch security camera footage of two disturbed teenagers shooting their classmates. I learned to tape green paper on my windows if I wanted tactical teams to know my students hadn’t been murdered.

I distinctly remember a fire drill, where the students were herded into a fenced softball field in order to keep a safe distance from the building. I worried, however, that the grounds could become a killing field, as over one thousand students had no quick escape route if some disturbed child decided to open fire.

I felt lucky to have a window to open if my students needed to escape, and even better, I had a tiny, windowless office protected by concrete blocks and a thick wooden door, where I could cram thirty teenagers in an emergency. I didn’t feel so lucky during pep rallies, where I would find myself scanning the student body looking for someone who would turn the gymnasium into a turkey-shoot.

After Columbine, teachers and students all across the United States learned to lock their classroom doors, close their blinds, and huddle in the dark during active shooter drills. Sadly, the best protection students can hope for in today’s world is luck. They just need to hope their school hasn’t been targeted by a deranged gun-lover wearing body armor.

By now, it should be obvious that no amount of enhanced safety drills will stop this onslaught. We’ve seen this movie for twenty-three years and yet the deaths keep piling up. After yesterday’s carnage in Texas, I have little hope we will see any movement to curb mass shootings. What we’ve seen is the predictable outrage from the President, congressional leaders, and even NBA stars and coaches. There have also been warnings from others in Congress not to act impulsively, not to attempt any restrictions on owning weapons made for combat.

And why should we expect change? We can’t really blame Mitch McConnell or Tom Tillis for defending a gun industry that pumps butt-loads of money into their campaign coffers. After all, their records on gun control have been clear for years. As the death toll from gun violence continues to pile up, Americans continue to buy more guns, and Americans keep voting for those who block laws that would save lives.

Thus far, as a society, we seem to be okay with mass murder. This should not be a surprise. In 2020 nearly twenty thousand people died from gunshot wounds, yet nothing has changed. Why should we think that voters will decide our children’s lives are more important than their “right” of gun ownership?

So, I guess the lesson I learned as a child still applies. We should tell our children that they live on borrowed time. They should be told that if they survive their next day in school, they should count their blessings. Let them know that if they get real lucky, they might even graduate from high school. But, what we shouldn’t tell them is that their country gives a damn about their lives. They need to know that as far as our government is concerned, they are considered unlucky collateral damage.