I often feel guilty for having left my Northern Ireland. I wonder if perhaps the better thing or the best thing would have been to stay, to strive to see beyond the images that flickered on our television screen at six o’clock every night. But I didn’t stay. I fled. I turned my back on the vulnerable, tiny country that shaped and scared me – my lovely tragic Northern Ireland —and I became an immigrant in an America I wouldn’t recognize after three decades.
And then, I turned my back on the United States of America.
In retrospect, I spent much of the 1980s planning my escape from Northern Ireland. It was a turbulent and traumatic time for my family, my friends, and for me. We lived and worked and played and prayed within a national crucible of doubt and suspicion; in a half-empty glass, we were always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
In such a small country, it makes sense that so many of us would know somebody directly affected by The Troubles. According to the Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN) from 1969 – 1999, “3,568 people died. There were over 35,000 shootings, 150,000 bombings, over 40,000 people wounded.” Countless others were traumatized to varying degrees. Surveys say half of the population knows somebody killed or injured.
What did I do about it? Nothing. I left. I packed up my trauma and brought it along with me.
Weary of the bombings and killings; weary of the hatred and the sense of hopelessness that seeped into our ordinary lives, I came to America. Ardent and young, I believed Tom Wolfe’s assertion:
America is a fabulous country, the only fabulous country; it is the only place where miracles not only happen, but where they happen all the time.
But those miracles were overshadowed by the realties of life in a place where gun violence is part and parcel of American life.
From the living room of my home in Mexico, I’m absorbing the news of yet another shooting in the United States. There have been 385 mass shootings so far this year, according to Gun Violence Archive,, and the TV reporter also tells us that in 2024 there have been 23 school shootings resulting in injuries or death and immeasurable heartache. She goes on to say that “back to school” means “back to another school shooting.”
The inevitability in her voice catapults me back to an evening from my youth. I am watching the news in our living room in a housing estate on the Dublin Road, wondering what will happen next and if it could possibly be worse than the last time. I am 18 years old again. The Hunger Strikes in the Maze prison are coming to a head. Ordinary people are afraid of what’s to come. It would all get worse.
What of America? What will happen next? It is a place where murder happens all too frequently, where schools or colleges or churches or movie theaters or grocery store parking lots or peaceful protests become killing fields, where hate – and complacency about it – appears to be winning – all the time.
America is now the place where kids are taught what to do in the event of a school shooting. I remember the first day my daughter brought home a “What to Do in An Active Shooter Situation” letter from the community college system where she was taking summer classes, trying to earn some college credits while still in high school.
Active shooter drills take place in virtually all public schools in America these days, a legacy of the Columbine High School shooting in 1999. Thirty years ago, we wouldn’t have expected language from police and prison in the public school lexicon, but “code red,” active shooter” drills and “lockdowns” appear to be here to stay.
Run. Hide. Fight.
This is not the America I dreamed about for my daughter, a place where schoolchildren are forced to hide in classroom closets while a shooter rampages the hallways. This is not what we say we want, but our cultural and policy decisions have made guns far more accessible in the United States of America than anywhere else on the planet. If we want something different for our kids and their future, we must do something different. So what are we going to do?
“What should have been a joyous back-to-school season in Winder, Georgia, has now turned into another horrific reminder of how gun violence continues to tear our communities apart,” President Biden said yesterday before calling on Republicans to “finally say ‘enough is enough’”, and pass more gun control legislation.
Biden knows – and we do too – that without more being done to prevent another school shooting, we’re just waiting for the next one to happen hoping that it won’t happen where our children go to school.
Enough is enough. What does that look like in practice? In Georgia, where yesterday’s school shooting happened, lawmakers don’t appear to have defined “enough.” They have shown they can be proactive on other issues. For example, House study committees have taken deep dives on credit card fees, excise taxes, and consumer protections in the tree safety industry. Senate study committees have studied prison safety, preserving farmland, firearm storage (after failing to pass a bill on it) and caregiver services. But, the Georgia State Legislature has never – never – formed a study committee to examine how to comprehensively address school shootings.
Journalist Patricia Murphy points out that Georgia lawmakers were proactive when, afraid that white students might feel guilty depending on how a teacher taught them about slavery, they passed a bill to outline which topics teachers could present and even the kinds of questions they could ask.
In response to a transgender college student in Pennsylvania swimming in a women’s swim meet, Republican lawmakers moved to ban all transgender kids from participating on Georgia school teams different from their gender at birth. A new Senate study committee held a public hearing last week to determine what more should be done on that issue.
But yesterday in Georgia, when two teachers and two students were killed by a 14 year old boy from their own community, there was no announcement of a study to address school shootings. Instead, there were – as there always are – thoughts and prayers.
You see, a study committee would reveal to GOP lawmakers the truth which is that the millions of dollars allocated to upgrading school security along with the what-to-do-in-an-active-shooting measures in place for K-12 students aren’t enough. The only way to stop this from happening again is to do something about the guns.
We’re learning that the 14-year-old suspect at Apalachee High School is in custody and is expected to be tried as an adult. The weapon he used was an AR-platform weapon.
While teenagers like the suspect would not have lawful access to buy a handgun, rifle, or shotgun under Georgia state law and federal law, Georgia has been ranked 46 of 50 in terms of the strength of its gun laws. State policies are described by multiple sources including the non-partisan Everytown for Gun Safety as “some of the weakest” in the nation, ranking Georgia 46th in the U.S. for the strength of its gun laws. Adults in Georgia don’t need a permit to buy rifles, shotguns, or handguns, don’t need to register their guns with the government, and don’t need a permit to carry rifles and shotguns, according to the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action. Just two years ago, Georgia governor, Brian Kemp, signed a bill making it legal for gun owners in the state to carry a concealed handgun in public without obtaining a permit, repealing provisions requiring people to obtain a license and be subject to fingerprinting and a background check before carrying concealed weapons in public spaces. At the time, Kemp said gun violence crimes were because of “criminals” who were “getting the guns anyway.”
With less than 70 days until the general election, Georgia is considered a swing state. Republicans control both chambers of the state legislature along with the offices of the governor, attorney general and secretary of state. This is reflected in its gun laws and those are reflected in the data that shows the rate of gun deaths in Georgia is increasing more rapidly than anywhere else, increasing 59% from 2012 to 2021 compared to 39% nationwide.
Georgia, enough is enough. Form a study committee. Give the gun issue at least as much consideration as credit card fees or how teachers should teach students about slavery. And then pass common sense gun safety legislation to prevent more gun violence. It’s time.
“The Cure at Troy” by Seamus Heaney
Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.
The innocent in gaols
Beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker’s father
Stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
Faints at the funeral home.
History says, don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracle
And cures and healing wells.
Call miracle self-healing:
The utter, self-revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
Or lightning and storm
And a god speaks from the sky
That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.
