Today on the Morning News we talked about the new Public Service Announcement from the Sandy Hook Promise organization.
Just to refresh your memory  - Newtown, Connecticut, December 14, 2012, Sandy Hook School mass shooting left 28 people dead and 2 injured making it one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.

Watch the video and you'll see how frightened children re-purpose everyday "back-to-school" items to help evade, escape from and fight back against an active shooter.  It is quite dramatic and unsettling.  The PSA shows the kid's terror and foreshadows the inevitable deadly aftermath as a trembling and tearful young girl texts her mom with one last "I love you" as a door opens and foot steps are heard coming down the hall. Yes, it's frightening but there is nothing in it about the warning signs or what steps we all can take to help.

It exploits the fear without presenting a solution - except to say go to the website.

We already feel the fear. I submit we don't have to see kids using new tube socks as tourniquets or new jackets being used to tie shut classroom doors to know something needs to be done.

As one caller suggested this morning, showing this side of an active shooter event only serves to empower those would commit such horrors.  The ad shows the fear and chaos their actions can bring.

What the bad guys need to see, what we all need to see is just the opposite of what this ad shows.

We need to see kids telling their teachers and their parents about warning sign type events.  We need to see school officials working with police, psychologists and the parents and kids of concern.  We also need to see a positive outcome from a gun violence intervention by people not too afraid to get involved before it was too late.

And maybe just maybe we need to see a scenario where a person who missed out on all the help, who brings a gun onto school grounds, and before anything bad can happen to the kids, that individual is hauled off in an ambulance or a hearse.

Back to the drawing board Sandy Hook Promise.  We need the public service but show us what we can do that works, not what happens when when we do nothing.  We all already know all to well about that.

Get the free guide on how to prevent gun violence at  sandyhookpromise.org

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