[New York Diary] The Normalization of Gun Tragedies in the U.S.: Children Practicing Lockdown Drills

Lockdown Drills Become Routine in U.S. Schools
Children Practice Hiding as Mass Shootings Persist

"In a classroom with the lights off, we were told to curl up, not speak, and not move."

Hailey, a woman in her 20s from Chicago, Illinois, said her first memory of a ‘Lockdown Drill’ was when she was six years old. In the U.S., as mass shootings have repeatedly occurred even in schools that should be the safest places, these lockdown drills have become almost mandatory. Students find a shelter, lock the doors, turn off the lights, hide their bodies, and wait silently until the emergency is lifted.

Lockdown drills to prepare for mass shootings are currently mandated in more than 40 states across the U.S. Additionally, about 98% of public schools conducted at least one such drill during the 2019?2020 school year. Hailey, who refers to herself as part of the ‘Lockdown Drill generation,’ said she had to repeat these drills occasionally until she graduated from high school.

The topic of lockdown drills came up right after a tragic mass shooting at an elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, where six people, including children, were killed. Following this, reports emerged from various parts of the U.S. that some schools conducted lockdown drills as part of security measures, as covered by local media and online platforms. Taylor Nicholas, who watched her two children participate in the drills, told Texas local media, "Seeing the drills right after the Nashville shooting broke my heart." Online posts include comments like "My 8-year-old son has been doing lockdown drills since he was 3, but he still doesn’t understand what it is," "Education that was unimaginable before coming to the U.S. is becoming routine," and "I want to check with the parents of my child’s playmates whether they own guns or not."

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

The Nashville elementary school shooting gave me a strange sense of d?j? vu. President Joe Biden immediately called it "a horrific nightmare" and urged for gun control legislation, saying guns are destroying our communities. Local media reported not only on the incident but also on the fact that 59 children have died from gun incidents so far this year and that the number of children admitted to emergency rooms with gunshot wounds has surged in recent years. The repeated school shootings have strengthened calls for gun control, while gun advocates countered, saying, "Now is not the time for gun debates. It is a time to mourn."

The reason for this sense of d?j? vu is clear. This was exactly the same pattern that repeated after the horrific mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, last May, which took 21 lives. The subsequent moves by conservative states to openly relax gun regulations were also the same scenes we have already seen.

Unfortunately, gun incidents now seem to have become a part of life for Americans. According to the Gun Violence Archive, a U.S. nonprofit foundation, there have been as many as 130 mass shootings with four or more deaths this year alone. Over the past three years, there have been between 610 and 690 mass shootings annually?about two per day. Regular shootings are far more frequent. This year alone, approximately 9,870 people, or about 114 per day, have died from gun incidents.

[Image source=EPA Yonhap News]

Gun control in the U.S. is an extremely divisive and long-standing political debate. Under the Second Amendment, gun ownership is interpreted as the right of Americans to protect themselves and their families with weapons. This issue is further complicated by the interests of lobbying groups such as the National Rifle Association (NRA). Despite polls showing that a majority of Americans support stricter gun control, bills repeatedly fail to pass Congress for these reasons.

In the end, significant change seems unlikely this time as well. And children will continue to practice drills at school, finding shelters, turning off the lights, curling up, and waiting silently.