Instead of posing for a selfie with a half-smile in a hospital gown, Scimio and who knows how many of his classmates might very well have been as dead as the three soldiers who were mourned by President Obama on Wednesday in the aftermath of the latest mass shooting at Fort Hood. Obama attended a similar ceremony at the base five years ago, after a previous mass shooting left 13 soldiers dead.

Obama might even now be planning a trip to a memorial in this small Pennsylvania town 20 miles east of Pittsburgh if the mayhem at Franklin High had been perpetrated with a 9-mm pistol like the one the 2009 Fort Hood gunman used or the .45 caliber pistol the more recent shooter wielded.

Had there been a gun at Franklin High, the dead might very well have included the school safety guard known to the students as Sarge, who was stabbed in the stomach while trying to stop the attack. The very brave vice principal, Sam King, who then jumped in, might have been killed before he subdued the 16-year-old suspect.