Our children don’t have to cower in closets.

Scared students don’t have to text loving messages to their parents, hoping those aren’t their last words.

School boards don’t have to contract with tech companies for instant-alert messaging to warn about school shooters.

Sixteen months ago, after a gunman shot five people, killing one, at Northside Hospital Midtown medical office building in Midtown Atlanta on May 3, 2023, we said we don’t have to live this way, but we do.

What has changed since then?

Only this: More people have died from senseless gun violence.

On Wednesday, four people — two 14-year-old students and two teachers — were killed and nine others were wounded in a shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said Wednesday he was “praying for the safety of those in our classrooms.”

Yes, the same governor who signed a bill allowing concealed carry throughout the state without background checks or a license is praying for our children to be safe at school.

But prayers are not enough. Not when you’re governor.

We know the governor is a reasonable person. He risked his party’s ire by pushing back against claims of election interference.

We beg him to be reasonable here, too, and to risk support from the gun lobby by pushing aggressively for gun reform.

The majority of Americans, including the majority of gun owners, support commonsense gun reforms that would keep Americans safe from this senseless violence. They know we don’t have to live this way.

Among the most popular of those reforms is preventing people with known mental illness from possessing firearms.

Though we don’t know the motivation for Wednesday’s shooting, we do know that the suspect and his father were investigated last year after someone reported a shooting threat made on an online gaming site.

The school was notified before the investigation was closed.

According to Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-reform advocacy group, “In all incidents of targeted school violence — 100 percent — there were warning signs that caused others to be concerned.”

A majority of Americans also support red flag laws, which would allow family members or law enforcement to petition to remove firearms from people who are believed to be a threat to themselves or others or people who have been convicted of domestic violence. (Red flag laws are especially useful in preventing suicide deaths from firearms.)

Red flag laws, also known as extreme risk protective orders, in conjunction with universal background checks (also supported by a majority of Americans) are strongly associated with reducing firearm homicides, according to the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government, a public policy think tank.

Secure storage can prevent firearms from ending up in the hands of curious children — or people with violent agendas. The majority of Americans support secure storage laws.

You might be noticing a pattern. Despite what you might hear from gun extremists, Americans really do support commonsense gun reforms. Most Americans support the Second Amendment and believe that there can be constitutional restrictions on the right to own firearms.

We’ve said it before, and we will say it again: We don’t have to live this way.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution