Iowa’s future is down the barrel of a gun

On Jan. 4, a 17-year old Iowa student inaugurated another year of gun violence in American schools. Even as the scene at Perry High School was being investigated, predictable responses flooded social media. Among the most common was a renewed call for “hardening” schools as potential sites of gun violence, which can mean controlling access to a single entry point, installing metal detectors, hiring armed guards, arming teachers, or all of the above.

But the debate over school hardening goes back at least a quarter-century to Columbine High School. In the wake of the Columbine mass shooting in 1999, schools made significant changes to building accessibility and security. A legion of private vendors also emerged to sell districts on a number of products and services: security cameras, School Resource Officers and private security guards, door locks, bleed control kits, ALICE training, and so on.

Yet, according to the Washington Post, there have been 394 school shootings since Columbine, affecting more than 360,000 students. It defies reality to argue schools haven’t undergone significant hardening. American schools have become more secure at the same time school shootings have become more numerous and deadly.

Gun violence doesn’t originate at the schoolhouse door, and it won’t be solved there. Our policymaking and political rhetoric need to reflect that reality. Instead, elected officials have made communities less safe by underfunding social spending and school programming that contributes to community health and safety while expanding access to firearms.

In a year when Iowa reported a nearly $2 billion budget surplus, Gov. Kim Reynolds rejected participation in a federal program to provide summer meals for Iowa kids from low-income families, calling the meager $2.2 million investment “not sustainable.” Iowa schools have also had to do more with less, as multiple years of inadequate per pupil spending increases have failed to keep up with inflation.

The most consistent and uncontroversial conclusion from the study of gun violence as a public health problem is that more guns lead to more gun violence. Even before the 2023 legislative session, Iowa had among the weakest gun laws in the country. In spite of this, the Iowa House approved bills last year allowing guns to be kept in locked vehicles on school campuses and allowing Iowans access to guns who were previously barred from carrying firearms. According to the gun violence prevention group Everytown For Gun Safety, despite relatively low levels of gun violence overall, gun deaths per 100,000 Iowans have grown since 2011 at a much faster rate compared to the rest of the United States.

Why should our state’s response to the tragedy in Perry be to put more guns on school campuses and more public money into the pockets of private security vendors, instead of making a more robust investment in Iowa communities and our public schools?

Why is the only vision our elected officials offer for Iowa’s future is down the barrel of a gun?

Nick Covington is an Iowa parent who taught high school social studies for 10 years and is co-founder of the Human Restoration Project, an Iowa educational nonprofit.