If you are a long-time reader of this column, then you probably know that I am not a native Minnesotan. Far from it, in fact.

Yes, I was born and raised in San Diego, California. I add the state name, California, because there is a San Diego in other places, like San Diego, Texas. Even Minnesota has a San Diego, sort of. St. James is the English version of San Diego, I have been told.

But, I digress.

To be totally specific, most of my 14 years in San Diego were spent living in the ‘suburb’ of Spring Valley, but going to school in the city of La Mesa. That is because from third grade through eighth grade I went to Christ Lutheran School in La Mesa.

Much like how Genesis Classical Academy in Winnebago has grown, I attended Christ Lutheran during its growth time in the later 1950s and early 1960s. In other words, when I started third grade there, it only went from kindergarten through fourth grade. Each year another grade or two was added until it finally got to eighth grade when I started seventh grade. I “graduated” from eighth grade the next year and then moved to Denver, Colorado for ninth grade.

But I digress, again.

My point is, that in the six years that I went to Christ Lutheran School in La Mesa, I don’t recall that we ever had an active shooter drill. I am not sure we were even aware of what an active shooter at a school situation was.

Oh, we practiced fire drills. And because we were in California, we even had to practice earthquake drills. The difference, in case you are wondering, is that in a fire drill you got the heck out of the classroom very quickly, and in an earthquake drill you dropped down under your desk and put your arms over your head. We never had a fire but we had an earthquake or two over the years – but nothing major.

No active shooter drill, however.

Like many schools in California, Christ Lutheran School was a long building of classrooms and a lunchroom that doubled as an assembly room. In other words, there was a long walkway (outside) along the side of the building with doors into each classroom or the main room or the office.

In other words, no main door into the school. You just walked up to each classroom. Each classroom, by the way, had two grades in it. One teacher taught both third and fourth grade, or fifth and sixth, or seventh and eighth.

In Minnesota, of course, our schools are all inside one (or more) large buildings with hallways inside. There is a reason for that, of course. It is called winter.

My grandchildren who live in California are both now in high school, but when they were in grade school, they attended a public school that had the same outdoor campus style (but just one grade per classroom, not two).

My point is that any kind of a shooter could walk up to a classroom and start shooting. Except these days, each classroom door is locked. Back in my day they were not.

And, back in my day, that was not a concern. I don’t recall anyone being worried about that. We didn’t ever hear about any kind of active shooter incident at schools.

I guess they did happen. According to reports there were 32 incidences of a gun being shot at a school somewhere in the U.S. in all of the 1950s, and 100 incidences of a gun being shot at a school in the 1960s. However, a lot of those were cases of a jealous husband shooting a teacher, or a student shooting a gun on purpose or accidentally, or a real gun being used in a play by mistake. That sort of thing.

But not some wacko just taking a gun (or several guns) and deciding to go to a school and see how many random students they can shoot and kill before either getting shot by police or shooting themselves.

The sad part is, that is becoming so common that it seems to be happening every other week.

This last one was horrific and hit many people hard. Maybe it was because it was in Minnesota. Maybe it was because it was at a church school and actually happened in the church. Maybe for me, personally, it was because it was at a school at a church that went up through eighth grade. Like my elementary school.

I don’t have any answers to this problem we, our children and grandchildren face. They have to deal with active shooter drills at school, because, as this week’s incident clearly shows, this can happen anywhere, at any time.

We need to make it stop. I’m not sure how, but I hope somebody does.

Enough is enough.