<p>By John Krull TheStatehouseFile.com INDIANAPOLIS – The alert came by both text and email. It said there might be an active shooter on the campus in North Carolina where my daughter attends college. The alert said students and college personnel should lock their doors and stay low until notified it was safe to do otherwise. […]</p>
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<p>INDIANAPOLIS</p>
<p>The alert came by both text and email.</p>
<p>It said there might be an active shooter on the campus in North Carolina where my daughter attends college. The alert said students and college personnel should lock their doors and stay low until notified it was safe to do otherwise.</p>
<p>My daughter is studying away from campus this semester, so she was in no danger. But she has friends and classmates — fine young people my wife and I know — who were there. And I’ve gotten to know some folks who work there. They, too, are good, decent human beings.</p>
<p>It turned out to be a false alarm.</p>
<p>There had been several reports of gunfire, the last email and text said, but it didn’t seem to be tied to an active shooter or threat. It’s hunting season, the school said, and maybe that’s what people heard. It also was possible some yahoo just decided that firing his weapon would liven up a weekday morning.</p>
<p>The school said the safety of the students and the people who worked at the college was the highest priority.</p>
<p>The implication was clear. In an America in which mass shootings now are part of our way of life, it pays to take seriously every report of someone running around with a gun.</p>
<p>I’m glad the school did so.</p>
<p>But I’m also appalled that we’ve created a country in which we condition good, decent people — children even — to think that rushing to hide behind locked doors and hug the floor should be just another part of the day.</p>
<p>The alarm at my daughter’s school came just days after National Rifle Association chieftain Wayne LaPierre met with embattled President Donald Trump.</p>
<p>LaPierre reportedly told Trump that the NRA would support him in the battle over impeachment and for re-election in 2020 if the president would “stop the games” over gun legislation.</p>
<p>There are at least two things that make this infuriating.</p>
<p>The first is that LaPierre lives in a multimillion-dollar mansion paid for with NRA funds that has been transformed into a fortress. It’s designed so LaPierre can live in safety, securely barricaded from the gun-crazy nation he helped bring into being.</p>
<p>No need for him to lock the doors or hug the floor because there are reports of an active shooter in the area. He can stay safe within the castle walls and not worry about mussing his expensive suits or ruffling the pricey carpet covering his floors.</p>
<p>The second thing that’s infuriating is that the only people playing games with gun legislation in this country are the NRA and its assorted lackeys around the country. They’re the only ones conjuring up game-playing bills — at taxpayer expense — to license journalists or churches.</p>
<p>I was at the Indiana Statehouse one day when a group of parents from Noblesville — site of a school shooting not long ago — held a press conference calling for a hearing on a mild piece of gun legislation. After it was over, a pro-gun legislator and another NRA mouthpiece who had been scurrying around at the press conference taking notes, almost broke their legs sprinting to find live TV cameras and open microphones.</p>
<p>They couldn’t wait to belittle and demean the parents’ concerns.</p>
<p>A beautiful teenage girl and a brave young teacher were seriously wounded in the Noblesville shooting. Some people might have thought basic decency might demand a modicum of respect and consideration for their suffering, grief and fear.</p>
<p>But, no.</p>
<p>LaPierre and his followers truly believe that they always are the victims.</p>
<p>Not the young girl with a gaping hole in her abdomen. Not the teacher who suffered multiple gunshot wounds while subduing the shooter. Not the parents and other family members who experienced terror wondering whether their children, grandchildren, brothers and sisters would live to see another morning.</p>
<p>Not long ago, my daughter’s school told its students and staff to lock doors and hug floors to avoid being shot.</p>
<p>It turned out — thank God — to be a false alarm.</p>
<p>For many other parents, for many other students, for many other schools, that’s not the case.</p>
<p>That’s why, for everyone but the NRA, the time for playing games with guns is past.</p>
<p>Long past.</p>
<p>John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students. Send comments to <a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a>.</p>
