Letter: Students Should Do What Lawmakers Do — Hide

Fall is here and all three of my children are back in school.

Our oldest daughter is teaching, our son attends college, and the youngest is a high school student.

Penn State has released a newly developed plan in the event of a mass shooter showing up on campus with assault weapons. Their advice is: HIDE!

I worked at Penn State during various campus shootings over the years, including a sniper killing one student and injuring another. The sniper killed that student before she knew there was a sniper on campus. There was no chance for her to run, hide or fight.

It is frustrating that besides running away (difficult to do in a classroom with maybe one door), hiding, or throwing a textbook at a gunman, this is the absolute best advice the smartest minds in America have to offer all my children and yours in the wake of tens of thousands of people being shot to death in recent years.

Hide.

We tell frightened 6-year-olds around the country to hide from guns because that’s what the adults who run the country are doing – hiding from guns.

It would be great if the boards that oversee my kids’ three schools take a public stance and demand lawmakers put the same enthusiasm into protecting kids they put into protecting guns.

Since my own congressman, Glenn Thompson, was first sent to Washington in 2009 more than 14,400 American children have been shot to death. His response has been to go to gun rallies wearing a bright red NRA t-shirt with a gun holstered at his side.

His message: We must protect guns.  Kids can hide.

When there is another mass shooting, like the three workplace shootings in this country during the past week, Thompson does his own version of Run and Hide.

What kind of leader responds to 14,400 children being shot to death on his watch by doing absolutely nothing?

Bill Mahon
Port Matilda