The video starts out like any other back-to-school commercial: Cheerful students show off their new backpacks, binders, and headphones, and rave about the educational benefits they’ll provide this year. But if you watch closely, you see that something goes awry as one student flaunts her colorful binders, and it happens again just as expensive headphones envelop the unsuspecting student’s ears as he studies. A student extolling the way his sneakers support his running is next, making it abundantly clear that this is not your average back-to-school supplies commercial … instead, this is a glimpse inside a back-to-school shooting.
This is also Sandy Hook Promise’s latest PSA. Watch it for yourself and then let’s discuss. Warning: It’s dark, and there’s blood. It will hit you in the feels—but it’s supposed to.
The PSA, called “Back-to-School Essentials,” is just the latest in SHP’s “Know the Signs” campaign, which was created to help equip students, caregivers, parents, and educators with the tools to identify potential mass murderers in their schools—since that’s a thing that students, caregivers, parents, and educators have to do now, as the nation continues its third consecutive decade of normalized school shootings and active shooter drills.
“So far this year there have been over 22 school shootings, and with students heading back to school, it seems sadly probable that we will see more incidents. This is unacceptable, given that we have proven tools to prevent these acts from occurring. We cannot accept school shootings as the new normal in our country. Our goal with this PSA is to wake up parents to the horrible reality that our children endure. Gone are the days of viewing back-to-school as just a carefree time, when school violence has become so prevalent. However, if we come together to know the signs, this doesn’t have to be the case. I hope that parents across the country will join me to make the promise to stop this epidemic,” said Nicole Hockley, co-founder and managing director of Sandy Hook Promise and mother of Dylan who was killed in the Sandy Hook School shooting.
SHP claims that over 7.5 million people have completed the “Know the Signs” programs nationwide, which “focus on gun violence prevention by training youth and adults how to identify at-risk behavior and intervene to get help before a tragedy can occur.” It’s worth noting that such training can and does help—since that horrific week in August that was bookended by the massacres at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, an El Paso Walmart, and a Dayton, Ohio, entertainment district, the nation has seen multiple plots foiled by people speaking up. As U.S. Attorney Justin Herdman said in August, after one such thwarted massacre, such pre-emptive strikes require “two very important people—a concerned citizen and a responsive law enforcement officer.”
Campaign Action
Honestly, citizens have to do all that they can, as long as the sputtering but still strong NRA continues to own Senate Republicans, in particular Majority Leader “Massacre Mitch” McConnell. Under McConnell’s leadership, an over 200-day-old House bill requiring background checks for all gun purchases has languished in the House that never dies, while Donald Trump—who was all for the background checks until Wayne LaPierre stepped in—gratefully embraces the less-deadly distraction of vaping bans. Senate Democrats even held the floor Wednesday until after 10 PM in protest of McConnell’s refusal to take up the House bill, with dozens of senators uniting to offer five hours of consecutive speeches about the scourge of gun violence.
Which brings us back to Sandy Hook Promise. Clearly, we’re on our own when it comes to protecting schoolchildren from gun violence, but the nonprofit—co-founded by a Sandy Hook parent who lost his son—is working to give people the tools they need, even if it takes 67 seconds of discomfort to wake people up to the realities of gun violence in school.
“This PSA is a gut punch, it’s uncomfortable, it’s hard to watch, but you can’t sanitize a school shooting,” said Mark Barden, the co-founder of Sandy Hook Promise. “My hope is that folks will see this and be inspired to take action.”
Barden’s seven-year-old son, Daniel, was one of the casualties of the Sandy Hook school shooting in December of 2012. Barden says that the prevention work done through SHP’s trainings and advocacy is a way “honor Daniel’s life in a meaningful way.”
Previous installments of the “Know the Signs” campaign are also heartbreaking, educational works of art.
There’s “Evan,” released in 2016, which explores the budding affection between two students that’s ultimately cut short.
Then in 2018, SHP released its spin on school elections, with “Point of View.”
Learn more about SHP’s programs here, and don’t hesitate to encourage your local schools to integrate the teachings into their curriculums. After all, telling people to “say something if they see something” doesn’t mean much if they don’t actually know what “something” looks like.