I bet that, at some point, every high school student in America has worried about being shot. Children of the post-Columbine generation have been preparing for their own school shooting since kindergarten. A school shooting is seen not as a fixable problem but as an inevitable possibility that must be prepared for.
There have been over 300 school shootings in America since I was born, since politicians came together and vowed that things would be different, and schools would be safer after the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.
In the wake of the February 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which resulted in a death toll higher than that of Columbine, it has become clear that security is not the problem. A 19-year-old man who was no longer even a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas came onto campus armed with an assault rifle and over 150 rounds of ammunition, pulled the fire alarm to lure students into open areas and started shooting.
Three days after the Parkland shooting, shooting survivor and senior Emma Gonzalez gave a powerful speech in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, describing the unregulated gun control system in Florida.
¨In Florida, to buy a gun, you do not need a permit. You do not need a gun license, and, once you buy it, you do not need to register it,” Gonzalez said in her speech. ¨You do not need a permit to carry a concealed rifle or shotgun. You can buy as many guns as you want at one time.¨
Doesn’t it feel disarming to see that, even after all these years, we, as a country, are still fighting and losing the same battle? Still, people bring assault rifles onto campuses and open fire. On March 20, only one month after the Parkland shooting, another occurred at Great Mills High School in Great Mills, Maryland. It left the shooter dead and two other students shot, one suffering from life-threatening injuries. This is still happening, and it could happen at any high school in America.
It’s not like the conversation about guns has not been sparked by tragedies before, but it seems that outcries to change laws regarding guns to avoid future massacres are always overshadowed by politicians sending thoughts and prayers to the families of the victims all while quietly collecting their money from the National Rifle Association (NRA). After a while, the protests die down, the remaining voices fade into the white noise and the fight becomes a stalemate. Then more kids die, so the politicians in Washington “care” again. It is a vicious and deadly cycle, and, clearly, not enough has been done to stop it. Our own North Carolina senators, Thom Tillis and Richard Burr, have received over four million and nine million dollars from the NRA over the courses of their careers, respectively.
But now the post-Columbine generation has come of age. The children who have grown up on an endless carousel of massacres around them have gotten sick of the complacency and hypocrisy in Washington that is only leading to more death.
No matter how many politicians, like President Donald Trump in his speech the day after the Parkland shooting, try to hide behind the argument that every mass shooter has a mental illness, grossly generalizing an entire portion of the population, people are not going to ignore the fact that access to assault rifles is a catalyst in the majority of school shootings. During his speech, Trump did not say the words “assault rifle” once.
Despite this, demonstrations all across the country have led to some change in recent weeks. Dick’s Sporting Goods banned the sale of assault rifles in their stores nationwide. A gun control bill passed in the Florida House of Representatives March 7, raising the age of a person eligible to buy a firearm from 18 to 21 and creating a commission to investigate the shooting in Parkland. The bill represents progress, but it also includes a piece of legislation that would allow school faculty members with adequate weapons training to keep firearms in their facilities as a form of defense. How many more massacres does our society have to live through before schools become as armored as prisons?
Protests have ensued all over the country since the Parkland shooting. Some 115,000 students have added their names to a volunteer roster for the gun-safety group, Students Demand Action. The “March for Our Lives” protest on March 24 in Washington, DC saw over 200,000 demonstrators, according to CBS News. Survivors of the Parkland shooting have begun lobbying for stricter gun control on Capitol Hill. The consensus from students is clear: more guns are not the answer. Weapons of war should no longer be allowed to land in the hands of civilians and students. It is an achievable and sensible goal that I and many other students are now working toward.
Through NRA funding, failure to recognize the lack of gun control as a major cause of school shootings and talk of thoughts and prayers in the place of real discussion about change, our representatives have insulted us as a generation. They have treated us like our opinion does not matter, even though we are in the most danger. I hope they know that one day we will hold office and make changes to save high school students who come after us. A person’s right to a gun, let alone an assault rifle, does not outweigh a student’s right to life.
