It is always sad when we have a tragedy such as the Parkland, Fla., shooting but it’s important that we keep this in perspective if we really care about protecting children.

In the case of Parkland it’s shocking that law enforcement at the school failed to protect the kids, that the school’s “diversion” policy (not reporting offenses to avoid giving students a criminal record) left kids unprotected, that teachers couldn’t defend themselves or their students because they didn’t have weapons or equipment to do so, that the Sheriff’s office didn’t report any of the numerous calls to the shooter’s home for domestic violence, or that the FBI failed to act even though the shooter was reported to them on two separate occasions. But pointing fingers at law abiding gun owners and demonizing the NRA over school shootings isn’t the answer. Too many Americans are ill informed about guns and mass shootings and so willing to take away people’s rights because they are acting out of fear and emotion rather than looking at the facts and recognizing the media’s influence and motivation for playing up shootings.

First and most importantly, school shootings are extremely rare. In fact, according to the CATO Institute, a child is more likely to be hit by lightning than be killed in a school shooting. https://www.cato.org/blog/how-common-are-school-shootings. And according to the Washington Post, “The chance of a child being shot and killed in a public school is extraordinarily low. Not zero — no risk is. But it’s far lower than many people assume, especially in the glare of heart-wrenching news coverage after an event like Parkland. And it’s far lower than almost any other mortality risk a kid faces, including traveling to and from school, catching a potentially deadly disease while in school or suffering a life-threatening injury playing interscholastic sports.”

The 24/7 coverage and reporting of tragedies like Parkland lead many to believe that we have an epidemic of school shootings and induce fear in people that is out of proportion to the actual threat posed. Keeping things in perspective is important. The media makes money off ratings and the adage “if it bleeds, it leads” exists because we all tune in to bad news stories which boost media ratings, and not so much for good news stories.

Secondly, “assault weapons” bans don’t work as effectively as many believe. According to Fact Check academic studies report the following key items “The final report concluded the ban’s success in reducing crimes committed with banned guns was “mixed.” Gun crimes involving assault weapons declined. However, that decline was “offset throughout at least the late 1990s by steady or rising use of other guns equipped with [large-capacity magazines].” The same article also reports that “The 1997 study said its analysis “failed to produce evidence of a post-ban reduction in the average number of gunshot wounds per case or in the proportion of cases involving multiple wounds.” But that’s not the same as saying the ban had “no impact.” The authors noted that the study was “constrained” to findings of short-term effects, “which are not necessarily a reliable guide to long-term effects.”

AR-15s have been around for 60 years now, mass shootings are a relatively new phenomenon, so what changed? Schools used to have gun clubs, kids drove to school with rifles in gun racks, what changed? Until we address the rot in our society we won’t get rid of violence. Even if we could reduce gun violence, we still have stabbings, bombings, assaults, and bullying going on both in and out of school. Studies show a correlation between fatherless children and increased aggression and criminality when children grow up in single parent homes, particularly when they grow up without a father in the home. There are many reasons for these phenomena, but the fact remains that we will see more anti-social behavior as the number of single parent households rise. Perhaps we need to encourage families to stay together and have better support structures for single parents who don’t have a partner so that kids aren’t bearing the brunt of our social disintegration. And no, I am not blaming single parents. But the data doesn’t lie, it is better for kids emotional health to have a traditional family structure.

Using the argument that we should ban “assault weapons” because we want reduce the number of children killed in shootings is misguided. What number of dead kids would be acceptable? I say zero is where we should be going and there’s only two ways to get close 1) ban all guns — because all guns are deadly or 2) implement common sense school security protocols — like we have at federal buildings. Allow teachers to carry if they choose to and are trained to do so. Install door security devices so shooters are locked out. And for those that are tempted to think that I’m putting my gun rights before the rights of kids to live (a common mantra of the left), no, my kids live just fine with my guns. In fact I’ll protect them with my guns — which leads me to my next point below.

Thirdly, the media rarely emphasizes the murders, rapes, assaults and robberies that were prevented by guns. According to a study by the CDC and reported by Just Facts Daily “Defensive use of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence, although the exact number remains disputed. …”

“Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million. …

(S)ome scholars point to a radically lower estimate of only 108,000 annual defensive uses based on the National Crime Victimization Survey,” but this “estimate of 108,000 is difficult to interpret because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.”

“Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was ‘used’ by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies….”

Lastly, though Benjamin Franklin used this in a slightly different context, it bears repeating: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Our Second Amendment right exists not just to allow for self-defense, but to allow us to through off the yoke of government tyranny if necessary. And those who would say that the Second Amendment was written when people only had muskets need to understand that when it was written people could also own cannons. And when it was originally written when the regular militia (Army) also only had muskets and cannons, basically the same weaponry available to citizens. The Second Amendment clearly indicates it’s an “individual” right for citizens to own weapons and that interpretation has been confirmed by the Supreme Court.

Many use the argument that no one “needs” an AR-15, but consider this: Rosa Parks didn’t “need” to sit at the front of the bus to get to her destination. It was her right. No justification was needed, that’s what a right means. Again, banning a type of weapon doesn’t get us closer to the desired goal of zero school shootings — but better security, better mental health interventions and less single parenthood will.

It is not logical, factual, or patriotic to want to infringe on the rights of millions of law-abiding gun owners because people are scared by a corporate media who exploit tragedies for ratings. We need a calm, rational look at facts to assess the threat and determine what will work to address tragedies like Parkland. Focusing on the tool used rather than the root cause of these events leaves our children dangerously unprotected. Security like federal buildings have would help. And not only to help protect us from mentally ill kids, but to protect us from terrorists that want to exploit soft targets.

Better reporting of kids with mental issues would help and probably would help with related issues like assaults and bullying. These are proven effective strategies and concrete steps we can take that respect everyone’s rights while keeping our children safe.

It’s not about how to make bad people stop, it’s about how to stop making bad people.

Susan Shiloh is a Silver Creek resident.