We can think of no issue that has more people proposing different solutions than the gun violence in schools. Many of these are kids talking to adults acting like kids. The adults don’t have the will or courage to change the order of violence, rather they seek to blame and say the problem is simply a lack of respect for the Second Amendment. We saw part of what we would consider a long-term solution emerge at the March for Our Lives this past spring in Washington, DC. The students from the Newtown, Connecticut shooting presented a banner to the students from Parkland, Florida school shooting. The banner/flag was Newtown’s way of saying we are with you and here is a reminder of our pledge—prayers with roots. We have high hopes for this idea of exchanging a tangible reminder of the violence. We would love to see every school district in America adopt one kid who has been killed or impacted directly by school shootings. Then we propose a National School Violence Prevention Day where each of these schools holds a ceremony of their choosing to honor the memory of that lost student. A memorial of the school’s making would be a source of information about that student, who she or he was, what they liked to do, where they were born, what their favorite video game was, who they thought was the best guard in the NBA or WNBA, or is Messi better than Ronaldo, their favorite snack, who’s on their play list. Our confidence in this being a workable solution is the success students in Ireland and France have had remembering individual soldiers who were killed during WW1. In Ireland all 32 counties have such a memorial in their schools. So a soldier who was killed is no longer just a statistic but a real person in history, maybe a hometown lad who had his last pint at McDonald’s, the pub. These students keep their 100 year-old heroes alive, and freedom is no longer an abstract idea, but one payed for with Irish blood. The same kind of activity is done in France. Here a community remembers the Australians who fought and died to liberate their village. These school children are pictured above. The news account says: “There is little to distinguish the village of Villers-Bretonneux in northern France from any other hamlet about the Somme but for its numerous references to Australia, from flags in shop windows and its streets named after Aussie cities. On April 24-25, 1918 the village was the scene of the world’s first tank battle between British and German troops which the Germans would win and occupy the township only to then face two Australian brigades in counter attack. By the end of the battle, there were 2400 Australian casualties with the decisive battle marking the end of the German advance in the Somme.” Raphael Teixera, a 10 year-old from L’Ecole Victoria, is one of those younger generations who appreciated what went on and what it means. “Because you helped us we are here and we learn about the war to remember you help us,” he said.

Toward getting unstuck: There is something wrong when one person can force their view on a whole community by just paying for the advertising space. Yes we can switch the channel. Yes we can put it on mute. Yes we can ignore it. But this is air pollution. It no more bumps up against the First Amendment guaranteeing free speech than shouting fire in a theatre, showing nudity in ads, selling food that has no Food and Drug Administration approval or lying about a product. Look, the networks couldn’t even say “shithole” for fear of the FCC, Federal Communication Commission: they had to say or show “s***hole”. The networks should set aside one percent of their profits for a one-hour special on cable, like Showtime, HBO, Hulu or the cartoon channel for guys like Steyer to say what they want to say. Scheduling the show for around midnight has a certain rightness about it. Maybe it could be called: Money Talks or Loose Change. What do you think of the problem and how would you fix it?