The response to a teen shooting an AR-15-type assault weapon at Apalachee High School in Georgia was by almost all accounts excellent.
A school staff member pressed a button on a newly issued security card that alerted teachers and law enforcement to an active shooter. Classroom doors were locked, alarms went off and police were dispatched, arriving five minutes later.
In the interim, a “school resource” aide confronted the 14-year-old suspect, who immediately surrendered.
The result: Only two students and two teachers were killed while nine others were injured, none with life-threatening injuries.
We say “only” not to minimize the unspeakable tragedy of another horrific school shooting but to emphasize how much worse it could have been.
In Uvalde, Texas, in 2023, for instance, 19 children and two teachers were killed in Robb Elementary School amid a catastrophic failure by law enforcement.
This is not to say more could have been done in Georgia and Congress to address what Northwell Health has called a public health crisis.
The Washington Post found that there have been 417 school shootings since the Columbine High School attack in 2019 and that more than 383,000 students have experienced violence at school since then.
Gun deaths are now among the top three causes of death in the United States for children along with cancer and car accidents.
Education Week, which has taken to tracking school violence, reports that 49 people have been killed or injured in school shootings in 2024, with 11 deaths and 38 wounded. Just two years ago, in 2022, 140 people were killed or injured in 51 school shootings.
Voters in New York and the rest of the country should consider this when casting ballots in upcoming state and federal elections.
In Georgia, the county sheriff said school officials were told last year the shooting suspect, Colt Gray, had been investigated for online threats, but school officials said they were never informed.
Nassau schools and police should make sure that type of possible communication failure never happens here.
Georgia also has among the weakest gun laws in the country. The state does not have universal background checks for gun purchases, safe storage laws or a so-called red-flag law — measures instituted elsewhere in response to gun violence.
By contrast, New York State has among the nation’s strictest gun laws – and the lowest rates of gun violence in the nation.
This includes a red-flag law that prevents people who show signs of being a threat to themselves or others from purchasing or possessing any kind of firearm.
The law was tightened after a 19-year-old white man killed 10 Black people and wounded three in a Buffalo supermarket in November 2022 – one of 647 mass shootings of four or more people that year nationwide.
Of concern is that Nassau County police have made infrequent use of the law compared to other police.
A review by Newsday found that Nassau County judges issued extreme risk protection orders involving 32 people this year, while Suffolk County judges issued orders involving 906 people.
The review came after police suggested in the aftermath of a recent Syosset murder-suicide in which five people were killed that the gun seizure measure potentially could have saved lives.
New York’s strict gun laws should also not be a given.
Then Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin, who mounted a strong challenge for governor in 2022, said in the wake of the Buffalo shooting that New York should dump its red flag law, loosen permits for concealed weapons, and allow New Yorkers to “stand your ground” – legislation that would allow people to use lethal force when they feel threatened.
The constitutional right, he said, to bear arms “shall not be infringed.”
This is the position taken by Republican officials in New York and across the nation.
But it is at odds with public opinion, which shows that Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, gun owners and non-gun owners want Congress to pass common-sense gun safety legislation.
A large majority of Americans support a nationwide ban on weapons of war like the AR-15, universal background checks, making 21 the minimum age to buy a gun and preventing mentally ill people who are considered a danger to themselves or others and those who have been convicted of domestic violence from purchasing a gun.
There are few areas in the law where the popular will has been so ignored.
Voters who wish to see the carnage end should remember this when they cast their votes in state and federal races this fall.