After the Santa Fe School Shooting, the Culprit Is...Trench Coats?
In the wake of last week’s school shooting in Santa Fe High School in Texas, conservative commentators and politicians have passed the blame for gun violence onto anything except, you know, guns and gun laws. Texas’ republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick asked for door control, and then went on CNN to blame abortions, broken families, and video games. The NRA’s new president Oliver North said the ADHD medication Ritalin was responsible. Then, yesterday, conservative MSNBC host and commentator Hugh Hewitt found another non-weapon to blame on the scourge of school shootings. “To the teachers and administrators out there, the trench coat is kind of a giveaway,” Hewitt said on his radio show. “You might just say no more trench coats. The creepy people, make a list, check it twice.”
This has happened before. The trench coat is one of the oldest school shooting scapegoats—the ones administrators and politicians can take half-measures against in the name of progress. And Hewitt is tapping into fears that started with the first school shooting to catch national attention: Columbine. But while it’s true that the Columbine shooters, as well as the gunmen at Parkland and Santa Fe High, were wearing trench coats, it’s absurd to say the items inspire shootings or make them possible.
In 2016, The Atlantic had readers submit strange dress codes at their schools, and there was a whole section devoted to policies influenced by Columbine. “I was actually suspended the day after Columbine because my trench coat was ‘gang-related clothing,” one student told The Atlantic. Since Columbine, some schools have even gone so far as to ban trench coats—which, of course hasn’t done anything to prevent the 288 school shootings that have taken place since 2009.
What gives the trench coat argument legs at all is that the piece of apparel does share an unfortunate connection with school shootings—it’s become a loaded, symbolic object. In the wake of the Columbine shooting, reporters found that the shooters were part of a group that called themselves the Trench Coat Mafia—self-declared outsiders who wore their trench coats every day (“TERROR IN LITTLETON: THE TRENCH COAT MAFIA,” a New York Times headline read).
But even back then, the trench coat wasn't the only non-gun object to be assigned blame. When it was discovered that the shooters were fans of Marilyn Manson, the heat came down so hard on the singer that he felt compelled to write a story in Rolling Stone defending himself. Late last year, he said “Columbine destroyed my entire career.” And yet school shootings persist.
Now, in 2018, those in power are suggesting cosmetic tweaks and adjustments in order to prevent school shootings. After Parkland, administrators forced students to wear clear backpacks—seemingly so no one could smuggle a gun in. Emma Gonzalez, one of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students who’s emerged as an activist after the shooting, compared the clear backpacks to “a Barricade Renter saying, ‘Hey do you need any extra fences that will create the illusion of safety but are easily jumpable?’” Now, like clockwork, the school districts that surround Santa Fe high school are actually banning trench coats for the remainder of the year. Call us crazy, but it feels like it would be a lot easier to just ban the guns.
