ST. LOUIS (KFTK)-- Another week, another child shot dead in the St. Louis region. This time, it was 13-year-old Nevaeh Smallwood.
What once would have been a shocking headline is now the new normal for those keeping up with local news. It shouldn't be.
After the local news teams do their normal drop by to interview the family, they wrap up and package their shots for the afternoon and evening news, most likely to be drowned out by other stories, like the latest covid infection numbers.
The seriousness of Covid-19 and the importance of getting vaccinated goes without saying, but study after study shows that healthy children are almost at zero risk of dying from the virus. That's not a number that can be argued. In fact, there have been zero reported child deaths due to Covid in the St. Louis region (City and County) since the beginning of the pandemic.
But children are dying in the St. Louis region to a crisis that has been going on for decades; senseless acts of gun violence.
As of today, 18 children have been killed by gunfire in the St. Louis region just this year alone. Absolutely horrifying.
There isn't an ongoing conversation, however, on how we can protect our children from bullets flying through our streets or how responsible gun ownership can keep our children safe. No public boards, no public hearings. Absolutely nothing. The conversation isn't even happening.
Instead, we're screaming at parents to throw a mask on their child's face because of a virus that has almost a zero percent chance of killing them.
For over a year now, the science has been clear about this, but the conversation still rages on while shamelessly ignoring the very real threat children in the St. Louis region face daily.
Imagine for a second if our leadership put just half the amount of time, energy and effort into solving the gun violence problem in St. Louis that is killing our children, that they put into trying to "save" our children from a virus that isn't a threat to them. What sort of ideas could both sides of the aisle agree to at the very least explore?
Gun safety education? More community policing? A larger police force?
There isn't one right answer but doing nothing absolutely isn't an answer and shouldn't be tolerated. Until both sides of the political spectrum can sit down in a room together and present their ideas, discuss and agree to actionable steps to solve this crisis, our children will continue to be murdered at a far steeper pace than any public health crisis they face.