Daily Times

The aftershocks of the Sante Fe High School shooting are being felt in Texas as well as here in Pakistan. A shooting spree by a 17-year-old pupil left 10 dead and another 10 wounded. This latest tragedy now takes the number of school shootings in the US to 22; just for this year alone.

Gunman Dimitrios Pagourtzis is believed to have worked alone. And though he reportedly set up explosive devices around and outside the school, local police have said that these were never operational.

This will be of little or no comfort to the parents of Sabika Sheikh, a 17-year-old Pakistani foreign exchange student from Karachi. She was due to return home in just under three weeks; having spent an entire academic year on scholarship in the US as part of the YES (Youth Exchange and Study) programme funded by the State Department. Students are required to live with host families as they immerse themselves in scholastic and cultural programmes. Indeed, it was the chance of a lifetime that ended far too soon.

This recent bloodshed is, according to American media, the third of its kind in eight days. It is therefore hoped that the US will finally come to accept that it has a gun problem. Pagourtzis is said to have used two guns to open-fire on his schoolmates. Both of which belonged to his father, who kept them lawfully. This necessarily raises grave concerns over weapon security on private property. Cross-partisan consensus must be reached on the question of liability when the latter fall into under-age hands; as well as anyone to whom a gun is not licensed. Because, quite simply, enough is enough. In addition, mandatory searches of all those entering school premises must now become non-negotiable.

The knock-on effect in Pakistan will be felt for a long time to come. Since 2003, some 1,100 high school students from this country have participated in the YES programme. This may not seem like a large number but this is just one exchange scheme. There are others, such as the Seeds of Peace; which brings together young people from conflict areas to engage in peace-building and leadership development. The State Department is a funding partner.

Such initiatives are especially important for Pakistani and American youth. Given the levels of deep mistrust at the highest echelons of the bilateral relationship at the governmental level — such cultural exchanges offer lifelines in terms of collective optimism and understanding. Given what happened in Sante Fe, families over here will likely think twice or thrice or more before even contemplating sending their children over to the US; especially when it comes to daughters.

Yet that aside, the US owes it to its own adolescents to get tough on gun control. For no more can they be allowed to be caught up in the crossfire between two competing ideologies regarding what keeps America safe. No more can they be written off as collateral damage. They deserve better. *

Published in Daily Times, May 20^th 2018.