Arm school guards – not children – to honor my husband

Last week, I watched the heartbreaking news out of Florida State University – another campus turned into a crime scene, another community shattered by gun violence. As someone who lost her husband in a school shooting, I can tell you: these moments are never just headlines, they are wounds that never fully heal.

Chris Hixon, my husband, was murdered on February 14, 2018, during the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre. He was an athletic director, a Navy veteran and, above all, a protector. When the shooting began, he did not hesitate. He ran toward the danger to save students. He was shot and killed while doing everything right.

Chris was trained to use a weapon. He served our country with honor. And yes, I have often wondered: if he had been armed that day, would he still be alive? Maybe. I will never stop asking that question. But arming every teacher or professor and ending gun free zones is not the solution.

Instead, schools should urgently hire more highly trained, carefully screened former military or law enforcement officers to protect their campuses. Such protectors can be recruited through an organization set up in honor of my husband and two other staff members who died alongside him: the Chris Hixon, Coach Aaron Feis and Coach Scott Beigel Guardian Program.

Relying on skilled individuals, trained specifically for high stress situations, is very different to asking educators or students to carry weapons into classrooms and lecture halls. The idea that a campus filled with civilians armed to the teeth is somehow safer is not only dangerous, but also deeply misguided.

Let’s talk about what actually happens when multiple people pull out guns during a mass shooting. More confusion. More chaos. More risk of innocent people being caught in the crossfire. If armed people around the Florida State University shooter had drawn weapons, it is likely even more lives would have been lost.

Yet we keep hearing that gun free zones make people more vulnerable. But what makes us vulnerable is our refusal to look at the full picture and fix the systems that keep failing us.

That means more armed guardians in schools, more responsible firearm ownership, more mental health support and better security for schools to ensure they are not accessible to people with the intent of doing harm in the first place.

I know this because I live with the consequences of our inaction every single day. My sons lost their father. I lost my husband and life partner. A community lost a leader who gave everything to protect the students he loved.

Chris did not die because the school was a gun-free zone. He died because a dangerous young man had access to a weapon of war. And because we, as a nation, continue to fail at prevention – we only react, mourn and then wait for the next one.

So, let’s stop pretending that gun free zones are the problem. The real problem is our fear – fear of facts, fear of change, fear of upsetting the status quo. It is time we move past that fear. Because our kids, and heroes like Chris, deserve better.