Perpetuating the cycle of violence?

Tamaqua Area has become the first school district in the state of Pennsylvania to approve a policy allowing teachers to carry firearms in school. When I first heard this, I thought back to my former grade school, West Penn Elementary, on the southern end of Tamaqua Area School District, and wondered what would’ve happened if 8-year-old me caught a glimpse of Mrs. Fritz’s Glock. The school board wants to protect children — for all the right reasons, I might add — but is it also perpetuating the normalization of gun culture in America, which likely contributes to this ugly cycle of violence?

After a string of violent mass shootings, including the recent Tree of Life synagogue shooting, Americans are understandably anxious over their security and their future. The POTUS believes that had there been armed guards in the Tree of Life synagogue, the terror inflicted by Robert Bowers could have been lessened, perhaps avoided altogether. He and other politicians have made similar arguments about school shootings. Arm our teachers, they say. But is this really what we want?

Why do I resist the idea? First, guns scare me. Their presence represents a clear threat. Guns are dangerous, even in the hands of a trained professional.

Second, guns represent a more abstract violence. They remind me of the capacity for violence in the human heart. Suffice it to say, I don’t like to be reminded of that. For many, though, guns are a necessary evil, a means of keeping the peace. Guns cause anxiety for some and relieve it for others. But we already have lots of guns. What we need are some alternatives to guns. How about state-sanctioned kindness courses? Schools are implementing a version of this with anti-bullying campaigns, but these programs are uneven and scattershot. We need a federally funded and mandated program that focuses on developing the social intelligence of our nation’s youth, specifically love and kindness, in addition to their mathematic and linguistic intelligence. How about touch therapy circles, places where people can go to find human contact, to hold hands with or maybe hug another human being?

So, instead of flooding our nation with more guns, let’s weaponize love. Let’s enlarge our capacity for kindness. This too is work. This too is about saving the future. Saying love is the answer feels tacky, I know. But it’s true. Love is a potent antidote to fear and hate, but it requires a buy-in from the general public. The risk seems high, but if we care about our collective future, if we want that future to be there for ourselves and our children, we need to open ourselves up to love.

Trisha Nardone

Allentown