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Let It Burn!
After shootings, CEOs get protection. Schoolkids get 'thoughts and prayers'
Less than two weeks after the UnitedHealthcare shooting sent corporate America scrambling for security, students and teachers at a small Christian school in Wisconsin were left to fend for themselves when gunfire erupted.
www.newsweek.com
Two shootings less than two weeks apart have exposed the difference in how America responds to gun violence, depending on who it targets.
While top executives of multibillion-dollar companies beefed up security and canceled in-person meetings in the wake of the assassination of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson earlier this month in New York City, students and teachers were offered little more than the typical outpouring of "thoughts and prayers" after the latest school shooting this week.
On Monday, a familiar story played out in Wisconsin, where a 15-year-old student opened fire at Abundant Life Christian School, a small nondenominational school in Madison, killing another teenager and a teacher. This time, a second grader made the 911 call that sent police swarming to Abundant Life. By the time they arrived, the shooter, whom officials identified as a 15-year-old girl, was dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
"My sincere condolences and prayers for all the victims of the tragedy at Abundant Life Christian School," Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican, said on X, formerly Twitter. His Democratic colleague, Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin, wrote that her "heart goes out to all those impacted."
The newest member of the Wisconsin congressional delegation, Representative Tony Wied, who was elected last month in a special election filling the vacancy left by Representative Mike Gallagher, also said he was "devastated by the news" and his "prayers are with the victims and their families" while thanking law enforcement.
It was a recognizable, if rote, reaction to an event that has become almost mundane in America: students and teachers gunned down in their schools—places where they are supposed to be safe.
In stark contrast, the December 4 shooting of Thompson shocked the country and sent corporate America scrambling. The biggest health insurers moved immediately to take down information about their top executives from company websites, temporarily closed headquarters and expanded armed security protection for their C-suites.
Dale Buckner, the CEO of Global Guardian, which received requests from 47 companies for additional executive security in the immediate aftermath of Thompson's assassination, told CNN, "This is a bellwether moment and a shift."
But that tipping point has not yet come to America's schools.
According to an analysis by the gun-violence prevention organization Everytown for Gun Safety, gun violence on K-12 school grounds rose by 31 percent last school year, the second-highest number of incidents since Everytown began tracking gun violence at schools a decade ago, in response to the horrific massacre of elementary-age children at Sandy Hook.
