Josh Fleitman: I'm afraid of sending my daughter to school, angry that solutions are being ignored

I’m the proud new dad of a 9-month-old baby girl. Fatherhood has fundamentally changed the way my wife and I think and how we perceive the world. There’s the new levels of joy that we didn’t think possible: our hearts melting at her first giggle, celebrating her first word and watching her meet great-grandparents for the first time.

But then there’s also the darker side of being a parent: the constant, gnawing concern and anxiety for their safety and well-being. It becomes a new part of your personality, down to the very fiber of your being.

And even though my daughter won’t be starting school for some years to come, this first back-to-school season since her birth has been jarring, to say the least. The heartbreaking shooting at Apalachee High School in Georgia, where a 14-year-old who had no business possessing a firearm — let alone a weapon of war — perpetrated a massacre and sparked a new feeling of pain down in my gut. This feeling was one that I hadn’t necessarily felt before at the tragedies in Uvalde, or Parkland, or Sandy Hook. Those were the before times — before I was a dad, when I was just a regular person simply horrified by the mass violence that our society allowed to befall our children and teachers.

But now, the two students killed and eight injured in Georgia — that could’ve been my kid. It could’ve been yours.

Now, as my wife and I scroll the community Facebook forum and read local news about new threats and firearm-related dangers at local schools, we look up with that mutual dread in our eyes and ask each other: “Is this really how it’s gonna be from now on?” Where every buzz of our phone could mean the worst has happened at our baby’s school.

That is no way to live.

This past few weeks alone, news headlines and emails from superintendents about gun-related threats have stopped parents dead in their tracks, triggering that most human of instincts — to do everything you can to protect your children.

In my own Shaler Area School District, a bullet was found on a bus after the elementary school pickup. School officials and law enforcement quickly launched an investigation, later revealing — after hours of parents feeling that pain in their gut — that it was a non-threatening but terror-inducing accident. A round of ammunition had fallen out of the pocket of a student, who forgot it was there from time at a camp the weekend prior.

A student at Moon Area School District was taken into custody after bringing a gun to school, reportedly in connection to social media threats against a dozen Western Pennsylvania districts and schools over the past several weeks. These threats resulted in lockdowns, early dismissals, late starts and virtual instead of in-person classes. A shooting outside a high school football game led to more security protocols tarnishing Friday night lights.

Learning, recreation and childhood itself are being robbed from our kids — because of gun violence at school.

And amid the emotional turbulence of being a parent thinking about your kid at school — yes, I’m afraid — but I’m also angry. I’m furious that those in positions of leadership whom we’ve entrusted to keep our kids safe at school — they’re not doing their jobs.

The simple truth is that we know keeping guns away from would-be school shooters and troubled youth is the best way to prevent these mass killings and alleviate the constant anxiety.

It’s not mental health. Every country has people with mental health challenges. But the United States is the only developed country that experiences this level of school-based violence.

Rather, policies to keep guns out of the wrong hands are an evidence-based way to keep our kids safe at school and spare parents and students alike what has become the trauma of simply living in modern America.

Policies like a safe firearm storage law to stop children and teenagers from getting easy access to guns that can be used in schools. Or universal background checks to stop prohibited purchasers from buying AR-15-style rifles, the weapon of choice for mass shootings. Or extreme risk protection orders (often called “red flag laws”) to disarm people who are at risk of committing school shootings. Or requiring the reporting of lost or stolen firearms to stop the flow of illegal guns that end up in the hands of youth.

These policies are widely popular across a broad swath of Pennsylvanians — including gun owners and conservatives.

The General Assembly in Harrisburg has failed to pass these life-saving laws. But parents, students and teachers have had enough of that pain in our gut. Do your jobs. Keep us safe at school.

Josh Fleitman is the campaign director for CeaseFirePA Education Fund, the commonwealth’s gun violence prevention organization.