Tacoma teacher: We know no change coming after Florida massacre

The day after 17 Florida students were killed, President Trump promised the administration would “tackle the difficult issue of mental health” but did not mention guns. It’s a perfect example of why Tacoma teacher Nate Bowling says students understand there’s “no change coming.”

Why was this pure evil in Florida so well armed?

“They feel empowered, but understand that big change in American politics only comes from crisis,” he said. “For reasons beyond me, the idea that children are being shot in our schools isn’t a crisis in our country.”

Bowling, Washington’s 2016 Teacher of the Year, says mental health treatment is part of the answer to ending gun violence. However, a societal conversation about the availability of guns and raising awareness of who fits the profile of a mass shooter. Simply increasing security at schools won’t do the trick.

“That won’t help,” he said. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School actually had an armed officer on campus who never encountered 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz before he opened fire with his own AR-15 rifle Wednesday. Bowling points out that someone intent on killing won’t be stopped by a few guards or metal detectors.

Bowling’s first year of teaching was in 2007, the same year as 33 people were killed in the Virginia Tech shooting. He says that since then, mass shootings have just become a “regular part of life in our society.”

And Bowling says as we sit here and debate gun control and mental health in American society, there is an “entire generation” of teenagers who are self-radicalizing.

Listen to the entire conversation here.