On Jan. 25, 2022, every Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates voted to make school shootings deadlier.
Nearly a full year earlier – on Feb. 16, 2021 – the Journal of the American Medical Association had published a study examining whether armed security in schools made those schools safer. The authors carefully examined every U.S. school shooting from 1980 to 2019.
They discovered that in a shooting, schools with armed security had a fatality rate 2.8 times greater than schools without it.
“An armed officer on the scene was the number one factor associated with increased casualties after the perpetrators’ use of assault rifles or submachine guns,” they wrote.
And on Jan. 25, every Republican delegate voted to expand the number of school security officers allowed to carry guns. Any of them could have looked up the JAMA study before that vote. None seems to have made the effort.
In Virginia alone since 2020, Republicans have voted to make it easier for criminals to buy guns.
Republicans voted to make it easier for gun traffickers to buy guns in bulk for resale to criminals.
Republicans voted to force guns into public spaces, and force gun buyback programs to sell recovered guns right back to dealers.
Republicans voted to keep guns in the hands of suicidal and homicidal people in crisis.
Republicans voted to keep guns in the hands of convicted domestic abusers.
Republicans voted for untraceable, often undetectable guns you could build in your garage.
Republicans voted to keep guns in preschools and daycare centers.
Republicans voted in defense of leaving guns loaded and unlocked around small children.
No matter how many men, women, or children die pointlessly and preventably, Republican elected officials will not choose your life or your children’s lives over the power of the gun lobby. Ever.
Letter from Nathan Alderman/Crozet
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