In prior posts, I have written about the issue of gun violence before, most recently here https://teachingbeloved.com/2022/02/05/remembering-deebony/
Yesterday in Nashville, the city where I live, there was a school shooting. Three children died. Three adult school staff. And the shooter was killed by police. I wrote some about this from a personal perspective yesterday here: https://medium.com/@williamsonsabrina4/the-most-important-lesson-we-didnt-learn-from-columbine-will-we-learn-it-from-covenant-ee92d34c3bf2
We have to have policy change in this area.
Sometimes in classes when we are talking about comparative policy (especially how policy in one country on an issue might be different than the US policy stance), students will ask about other countries that make decisions that lead to better outcomes for their citizens than what we currently experience in the US. Broadly, students usually ask these questions in the context of educational policy, healthcare access and policy, and gun violence.
Here are three good and fairly recent resources for sharing and discussing the issue of gun violence policy. They are from varied resources, but all reputable, and easily consumed/understood by students:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/world/europe/gun-laws-australia-britain.html
https://www.healthdata.org/acting-data/gun-violence-united-states-outlier
After discussing the content, you can always ask students to contact their elected officials to share their opinions and concerns. Here’s how they can quickly find their federal elected representatives: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
It is also useful to look at state legislative assemblies as well, and have students do some comparing and contrasting in class.
Finally: it may take some digging on the students’ part but having them examine how their elected officials voted on gun related legislation is interesting. Here’s a bit of a recent historical look: https://www.npr.org/2018/02/19/566731477/chart-how-have-your-members-of-congress-voted-on-gun-bills
Teaching (toward) Beloved 