I'm a teacher myself. I've taught social studies to middle school students in Danbury, Connecticut for 30 years. And I'm also a father. I got the same sickening feeling when I heard about Gregory Carter, who was wounded by gunfire at a high school in Richmond, Virginia this past spring. And yet, I need to remind people that schools today are still among the safest places in America.
Children are far safer in school, in fact, than they are in their own homes.
The Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice reports that nearly 3,000 children die from gunfire outside school each year. That's about one child killed by a gun every three hours. Statistically speaking, schools today are no more dangerous than they were in 1989. Even one shooting in a school is one too many. Because the truth is, violence in America's schools is not endemic to schools themselves.