We can't armor our way through mass shootings. It's the guns. |
There have been at least 75 school shootings in the United States in 2025. Some of the victims of the Dec. 13 shooting at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, had even faced a shooter at school before.
On Dec. 18, authorities discovered the body of 48-year-old Claudio Manuel Neves Valente in a New Hampshire self-storage unit. Neves Valente is the suspected gunman in the Brown shooting and another two days later that left an MIT professor dead.
While the horror of events in Rhode Island sinks in, it is inevitable that, just as night follows day, defenders of mass gun culture across the United States will rush to blame Brown University for not having enough security barriers to entry at the classroom building where the shooting took place.
For them, it is always something else, not the way our nation lives awash in easily available high-capacity firearms, that is at fault. This time, let’s stop the “more security” fallacy before the propaganda machine backing it kicks into high gear.
I am a college teacher, and of course I want my students to be as safe as possible. I have even discussed with students the possibility of a mass shooting event on campus, especially when teaching in classrooms with no opening windows. However,........