Being a person who was in the room as a witness to the 1993 Chelsea shooting of superintendent Joe Piasecki and high school principal Ron Mead along with being the third victim of those gunshots, I have a chilling reaction any time there is a gunman who forces his will on others by taking their lives.
A close relationship with everyone involved in our school shooting including the shooter certainly makes my reaction to current acts of violence a little different. I had the superintendent's daughter in class, the principal's daughter was on my yearbook staff and my daughter had daily conversations with the shooter, teacher Steve Leith and his teacher wife, Alice.
Along with that when I see something like the Virginia shooting I always seem to have flashbacks to the Chelsea shooting. But interestingly it isn't to the shooting itself. My thoughts always seem to go to the "other" people, the family, friends and community. They weren't involved at the scene, so they didn't get the attention or the opportunity to talk about it with people who are really interested. They were devastated by what happened but were powerless to affect any of the outcome. I, at least, had the opportunity to affect some of the outcome by talking him down and comforting his wife. I also had many opportunities to talk about it, and that was healing for me.
The sadness and anger carried by the family members of the victims is another thing that my mind wanders to.
They will carry so much of that for the rest of their lives. Beyond the feelings of loss for their loved ones, they have the anger toward the person who took that loved one with a willful act. Oddly enough, it rekindles the haunting notion that there is something that I should be doing to try to change society, to help rid us of this disease. I heard many people talking about gun laws and such to change the situation, or to give guns to educators to shoot the gunmen, but to me there is only one solution. It isn't laws to control who buys guns. Most mass shootings have happened with legally purchased guns, bought by law-abiding citizens. No gun control laws will fix this situation. I keep coming back to only one solution—ban guns.
Banning guns is an outrageous idea, nearly an impossible task. How many law-abiding citizens would feel forced into refusing to surrender their arms, since many feel we must have guns to protect ourselves from all the criminals who wouldn't surrender their guns. In 30 years living in Chelsea, I have never heard of a resident resorting to protecting his family with a gun. In those same 30 years, we have lost probably a dozen people to suicide with a legal gun or murder by a law-abiding citizen. As more law-abiding citizens purchase millions of new guns every year in the US I fear for the future of our children.Phil Jones is a longtime teacher at Chelsea High School.
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