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The one-year anniversary of the tragic shooting in a Nashville Presbyterian Church Elementary School on Monday, March 27, 2023, is fast approaching.

Tragically, three nine-year-old students and three staff members perished.

The shooter was a 28-year-old transgender former student of the school.

My heart breaks every time there is a school shooting and kids get killed and injured. But this particular incident stabs me deeper still. Religious schools in general teach love, tolerance, personal and family values. Former students shouldn’t be the ones expected to return to carry out such a heinous crime.

In a press conference following the incident, law enforcement reported that when the shooter’s home was searched, there was evidence of a plan to shoot up two locations, but that plan was aborted because there was too much security in the other location. So once again, the victims end up in a gun free school zone.

Unlike in Uvalde, Texas, where an army of first responders took over an hour to apprehend the shooter, law enforcement officers were on the scene and engaged the shooter in 14 minutes… 14 minutes!

Yes, much faster, yet still an eternity when you have no way to fight back.

When will they ever learn?

For years, I woke up every day waiting for our twin girls to come home safely from school. Now that they’re away in college, I hope every day that they’re okay.

I taught them firearm safety and even bought them armored plates to put in their backpacks. I despise the thought that such is the world we live in, but rather than bury my head in the sand, I prefer to be proactive and encourage my girls and every parent to recognize that if you don’t have these conversations now, , if you don’t teach your kids what and how to act in the presence of firearms and or a threat with one, you may not get a second chance.

I’m confident that my anger and frustration are echoed by all of us. Time and time again, instead of securing schools and protecting children, more gun restrictions are proposed.

Teachers aren’t armed.

Law enforcement is too far away.

And parents cannot come to school carrying their legally concealed firearms on school grounds.

I bet that many parents would be happy to volunteer while schools are in session to stand guard on school grounds and be a direct deterrent to would be shooters.

Yes, they would still have to be thoroughly vetted and prove they are well trained to handle the task, but it’s an untapped and abundant resource that, in my opinion, should be taken advantage of.

The shooter herself reconsidered her first target because of the added security. How much clearer does it need to be?

Granted, there are a handful of school districts who recognize the threat and are implementing truly common sense measures to fortify schools and arm the faculty, but these are far and few between when compared to the emotional and theatrical outbursts of the gun control lobby who propose measures that make the kids even less safe than they are now.

I’m sorry, but their stupidity and apathy know no bounds. I don’t buy their caring and concern one bit. To me, it’s nothing more than lip service for votes. In the world we live in, unprotected school zones don’t work. They provide nothing more than a false sense of security for sheep and a bonanza for unrestricted violence for evildoers.

When was the last time you heard of a shooter getting anywhere in a courthouse, a military base, or anywhere else where there is heavy security?

Yet, it is a common occurrence in unprotected venues. And who do these lawmakers treat as a criminal? You and me. The law-abiding citizen. I have zero confidence in the government and the Board of Education to protect children from such evil, especially when they prefer to call concerned and outraged parents “domestic terrorists” instead of taking their concerns to heart and taking action to keep the kids in their care safe.

The gender identity indoctrination and the money spent on gender studies instead of securing schools and arming teachers is outrageous.

In this particular case, what has it produced but a confused and tortured killer?

Why hasn’t anyone in the Department of Education that allowed for such indoctrination been held accountable for what it produced and the consequences?

I can only count on myself and fellow safe, responsible, well trained, and lawful gun owners.

We alone must continue to take responsibility for our safety and the safety of our loved ones and never stop to resist the anti-gun lobby as they attempt to keep us all more vulnerable without providing any guarantees for our safety, while they prance around with armed bodyguards in bulletproof vehicles and their children chaperoned that way too.

Well, the rest of us don’t have that luxury and look to lawmakers to make laws that give us an opportunity to close that gap within our means and give educators the means to keep our children safe when they are not in our care.

Yet still, these lawmakers pretend to care with wishy washy rhetoric and propose laws that do the very opposite. And they wonder why politicians have a bad rep and little to no credibility.

So please, if you have been reluctant to have this conversation with your children, have it. if you have not taught them firearm safety and what to do if such a horrific event finds its way to their school, teach them. If you can’t do it yourself, then find someone who can. There are professional instructors abound, so there is no excuse.

Don’t put yourself in a position to think or say, “I wish I would have done it when I had the chance.”