In the Santa Fe school shooting, what do you think the first line of defense should have been?

“I was thinking it was going to happen eventually, it’s been happening everywhere,” Paige Curry, a Santa Fe High School student told a local Houston station. “I was ready to run out, but my teacher told me to hide instead, so that’s what I did.”

We’ve all seen her on the news. We’ve heard, and read her quote multiple times. We’ve weeped. We’ve prayed. We’ve discussed it with our friends, our lovers, and if you are a believer, God.

But all the discussion won’t bring the kids and the two teachers back.

All our contemplating; “HOW DID THIS HAPPEN AGAIN” will not ease the suffering of the parents who have lost their children. Nor will it bring any comfort to the parents of Shana Fisher who taught her that it’s okay to say NO. That teaching your daughter that she doesn’t have to date a boy she doesn’t want to is her right, and prerogative. Never in all the years of my raising my little girls into young women did I ever think while telling them that they could, and must say NO, when something doesn’t feel right could result in death. Not for one hot second while I was teaching them about how to own their power, that possibly one day that ownership, of saying NO to a boy, the WRONG boy, which is a complete answer, by the way, might lead to their death.

I simply taught them that it was their right to say no. With no fear for their safety.

But now here we all sit, once again wondering how a boy who had threatened to kill a girl not only made good on his threat, but wasn’t stopped before it happened? How is it authorities didn’t take the threat seriously? And when will they begin to understand that in this new world of ours, sadly, all threats like this must be taken seriously.

Perhaps if we had something in place to protect the lives of people who are being harassed and threatened PRIOR to their murders we might be burying less of our children? Like I can’t help but wonder did Shana’s mother contact the boys parents? The school authorities? Anybody? Or was it just a conversation between a mother and a daughter that didn’t go any further, and now this is the outcome? Would his parents knowing that he had threatened to take her life have changed the outcome? Would they have been able to parent him out of it??

I have too many questions, as a parent, and as a concerned global citizen; and I can’t help but wonder what’s it going to take to bring about the change America so desperately needs. And I’m still holding onto the notion that maybe if we started to hold parents accountable when their children commit heinous crimes such as these, we may begin to witness more proactive parenting happening with mentally unsound kids???

Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm…

Until then we’re relegated to praying, that is until the polls open.