Blain, M.D., is a family physician practicing telemedicine, father of four sons, and a former middle and high school teacher. He lives in Poway.
In January, the San Diego Police Department prevented a mass shooting at my son’s high school, Rancho Bernardo High School. A student and his father were arrested after the student told other students that he was planning a shooting at the school. Police removed uned guns, explosives, rocket-propelled grenades and supplies to make rifle and handgun ghost guns (do-it-yourself weapons that don’t need serial numbers and don’t require a background check) from the family’s home.
Panic swept through my house and many others in Poway, Rancho Bernardo and neighboring communities. We are all concerned about the safety of our schools and want to see Poway Unified School District do more to protect our children.
Poway has already had one mass shooting at the Chabad of Poway on April 27, 2019, when 19-year-old Mt. Carmel High School graduate and Cal State San Marcos nursing student John Timothy Earnest opened fire with an AR-15-style rifle. Parents and students in Poway, Rancho Bernardo and neighboring communities demand that more be done to prevent future mass shootings.
Every day in the U.S., an average of 12 children die from gun violence and another 32 are shot and injured. Since 2020, firearms have sured motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of injury-related death among American children and adolescents (persons 1 to 19 years of age). There were 48,830 gun-related deaths (due to homicide, suicide and accidents) in the United States in 2021, an 8 percent increase from 2020 and a new peak. It is estimated that 7 percent of all U.S. children (4.6 million) live in a home where at least one gun is loaded and unlocked and 42 percent of households in the U.S. own at least one firearm.
The United States has the most school shootings in the world. Motivations for school shootings include depression, seeking revenge and bullying. According to a 2019 report by the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center that analyzed 41 incidents of school violence at K-12 schools from 2008 to 2017, most attackers who target K-12 schools were bullied — sometimes persistently. Bullying can be done by other students, parents, teachers, s or superintendents. All bullying needs to stop!
Preventing gun violence and school shootings involves proactive interventions by parents, children, teachers, s, school boards, law enforcement, and community and political leaders. This involves establishing threat assessment programs, enforcing existing firearms laws, providing crisis intervention, drug and mental health treatment, recognizing the risk of crime and violence, and encouraging reporting of concerning behavior. San Diego County just released its Gun Violence Reduction Program with programs promoting suicide prevention, targeting intimate partner violence, offering free gun locks, youth mentorship and after-school programs, and partnering with trauma hospitals and community-based programs.
Although the Second Amendment of the Constitution protects the “right to keep and bear arms,” federal law prohibits the possession of a firearm by anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective” or “committed to a psychiatric institution.” The 1968 Gun Control Act and subsequent amendments prohibit anyone convicted of a felony and anyone subject to a domestic violence protective order from possessing a firearm. Parents who allow firearm access to children with mental health issues can be punished. The mother of a teenager who killed four students in an Oxford, Michigan, high school shooting was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in February. She faces up to 15 years in prison for giving her 15-year-old son a gun and “failing to get him proper mental health treatment despite warning signs.”
Mandatory mental health assessment of students and adults exhibiting risk factors (bullying, drug use, self-harm, suicidal ideation, depression) can prevent gun violence. However, as every pediatrician will tell you, kids are not little adults. “To solve this complex problem, it’s important for adults with their fully developed brains to understand the mind and nervous system of our youth,” says clinical psychologist Eric Mendoza.
Bystander reporting is a crucial strategy for preventing school shootings. Safe storage of firearms can prevent school shootings, suicides, and deaths of family and friends. Store guns in a lock box unloaded and separate from ammunition, disable the gun with a firearm safety device and place the firearm in a location where it cannot be found by others.
Poway Unified School District does a great job at some school safety interventions, such as the See Something, Say Something programs and the anonymous PUSD Tipline (1-844-PUSD-TIP) printed on the back of every secondary student’s ID card and QR codes posted around schools.
Areas of improvement include addressing the fact that the PUSD Tipline is not appropriate for reporting less urgent issues like depression, antisocial behavior or other less obvious risk factors. An anonymous phone line local to each school should be at the top of the school website, on school IDs, and posted in every classroom and all over school. It should be monitored 24/7 and 100 percent of comments should mandate immediate meetings with students, parents, school counselors and principals to ascertain issues and intervention. Mental health assessment and school follow-up should be mandatory. School Site and District Safety Committees should meet more often and have authority to make immediate improvements.
