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This year, more people have died from gun violence in schools than have been killed while serving in the US military. Most of them have been students, as was the tragic case again last week at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas, where a gunman murdered eight students and two teachers. Focused on schools, that depressing statistic doesn’t include other victims of more than 100 mass shootings in 2018, including in a Nashville Waffle House and a Detroit gas station. With each attack, Republicans dust off their “thoughts and prayers” tweets and channel preposterous NRA talking points. Before the next mass shooting — and in America, there is always a next time — let’s purge all of the GOP’s rote excuses and half-baked solutions. (Renée Graham, 5/22)

The task we, as Americans, have before us today is: “How to accurately profile and identify school shooters in a way that doesn’t provide the student body with another avenue for social ostracization if an error is made in the screening process of one individual.” However, this task, if we were to undertake it today, would be all but impossible because we don’t have the mental health resources in schools to promote proper behavior amongst developing students, or to accurately intervene in cases of suspicion. ...Ultimately, the only thing that will allow us to find success in endeavors such as these is the implementation of a diverse mental health care curriculum that teaches students how to deal with stress, anger, tragedy, disappointment, and the scourge of ostracization. (Kai Koerber, 5/23)

Perhaps we as Texans can find ways to put aside our differences and figure out how to address our own failures as parents and as taxpayers. We must do more to detect early signs of mental illness, provide adequate treatment and support, share signs of trouble in our children with authorities and adequately fund school counseling and proven school-based programs. And we must secure our guns. (5/23)