BILLINGS — According to Gun Violence Archive, Monday's school shooting in Madison, Wisc., was the 487th mass shooting in the United States this year. That's more than one shooting per day, with an additional 122 shootings.
A Billings woman said Tuesday she is afraid this high number of mass casualties is leading to desensitization to violence in schools. A child never coming home from school is every parent's worst nightmare.
"To then see the news that in another part of the country, a mom who sent their kid to school, just like me, is not going to have their kid come home, is paralyzing," said Emily Romrell, a Billings author and mother.
That fear is something that Romrell frequently experiences, as her oldest child is now in third grade.
"I think that it's sad that (school shootings) happen so often, that we just kind of move on and throw our hands up, like 'Oh, there's nothing we can do,' and we just move on," she said.
Romrell started writing "Listen, Run, Hide" when her eldest daughter entered kindergarten. In college, she studied early elementary education, and throughout the pandemic heavily researched school shootings and lockdowns.
Her picture book helps parents talk about these scary topics with their young children.
"At the end of the day, kids are experiencing mass shootings. They might not be in the room when one is happening, but they are experiencing drills or they are hearing about them from friends, or they will eventually grow into awareness," she said.
Lockdown drills have become a normal occurrence at schools in Billings. Sometimes the drills can be alarming.
MTN asked Castle Rock Middle School seventh grade students Tuesday during a school safety event at MetraPark about their experiences with lockdowns.
"When it's not planned or we don't know about it, I get a little bit concerned. But, I know I'm safe in the classroom," Kennadi Savaria said.
"I just think that something really bad happened and I just get scared," said Cayden Cardwell.
"I feel like our school is very secure, but people could still break in or hurt others. I get scared, too," said Lillian Shankle.
Romrell believes that schools should be transparent about when they're in a drill versus a legitimate lockdown, as students may start to get used to the drills and not be alert during a real-life event.
"They should really be announced, and I think it's the classic crying wolf scenario," she said.
As school shootings are on the rise in the United States, Romrell fears that students and Americans may become more desensitized to school shootings and will accept it as inevitable.
She says Americans are starting to react less to these shootings due to their frequency, as in 2014, CNN reported 36 school shootings, 53 in 2019, and 83 this year.
"I think it's important to realize that we do have a duty to be talking to our kids about this, and even as they grow older and grow into adulthood, how other countries don't have this problem," Romrell said.
