Processing Ways to Mitigate School Shootings

I was on a family vacation in California when I heard the news that another school shooting occurred in Uvalde, TX. Long story short, an 18 year old young man had bought two guns and a bunch of ammo beforehand and then began his evil day by shooting his grandmother in the face (she survived). He was pursued by police and crashed his car before entering into an elementary school. He locked himself in a classroom and open fired on teachers and students, killing a total of 19 kids and two teachers before an off-duty border patrol agent entered the room and shot him. It’s a horrifying event that has led to a lot of sadness, anger, and finger-pointing.

I’ve written on school shootings before but more from a theological viewpoint of processing evil, and I also wrote one imploring people to have better discussions by avoiding cheap virtue-signaling and approaching the topic with sober-minded analysis. I’ll try the latter again, though oftentimes, even telling people to stop screaming slogans or that their loud social media presence doesn’t make them better people tends to make them angrier.

I’m going to say this as gently as I can: Spewing uninformed takes doesn’t make you virtuous, nor does it prove that you care more than people who disagree with you. Let’s start with the pretty obvious assumption that most everyone is horrified and mad about what happened, so let’s hit the brakes on accusing other people of bad motives. We also have to understand that A. It’s going to take a multifaceted approach to try to curb these kinds of shootings and not just hyper-focus on one aspect B. Laws rarely work at all times for everyone, so there are usually downsides and trade-offs to consider and C. There will always be a human element involved, so even policies in place to stop shootings can fail when people don’t do their jobs. That’s the world we live in.

In any case, a multifaceted approach will have to encompass at least these things: The home, gun laws, school security, law enforcement, and mental health. Let’s go through them in turn:

Why Even Pro-Choicers Should Condemn the SCOTUS Leak and Support Overturning Roe v. Wade

Quite the title, huh? Well let me make my case below.

I was studying for my comprehensive exam when a bombshell report was dropped by Politico: The news site got its hands on a draft of a Supreme Court decision where a majority voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that concluded that a right to abortion was protected under the Constitution. The document is authentic, as later confirmed by Chief Justice Roberts, and it has led to all sorts of meltdowns and explosive takes.

I’d like to jot down here how I’ve processed the leak, and perhaps it can be helpful to others, particularly other Christians, in how they process it as well. I want to be clear from the start though: What follows is more of a political/legal analysis rather than a moral one because it is entirely possible to be critical of Roe v. Wade despite being pro-choice and it is also possible to be pro-life morally but believe that a right to abortion is important.