As a preface to the article, I would like to mention that I wrote and edited this article prior to the two on-campus shootings earlier this month in Utah and Colorado. I could write for hours about the media instilling division through these events or the overshadowing of the school shooting in Colorado by the Charlie Kirk assassination, but in the end, I believe the largest message comes from how outdated this article immediately felt after only one week. We’re in a time when shootings that happened only three weeks ago are forgotten about because of our culture's need for constant relevancy and stimulation. I just hope we don’t move on from the current problems at our hands and address our problems head on.
The heavy emotions I felt receiving my high school diploma this past May came in distinctly differing ways.
I felt a deep sense of accomplishment for myself and my closest friends. I felt as though a suffocating weight was lifted off of my chest, opening a portal for unlimited success. I felt as though I would never return to Huntsville and live the same simple and carefree life. I would never roam the halls of the high school or put my keeper gloves on for soccer practice.
It was this breakneck speed of time passing that pried my fingers from holding on. An era of childhood was closing in front of my eyes, and I didn’t know how to react to it. As I took in the occasion, feeling gracious for the memories and sentimental for the time I would never get back, for a brief moment, I thought to myself, “I survived.” I survived a part of life that many children and young adults don’t each year.
In light of the most recent national tragedy at Annunciation Catholic school in Minnesota, as well as local on-campus news of gun violence, I’ve been reminded of two things.
One, gun violence won't end until attention is given towards proper gun control policy. Simply funding more and more security measures has not only been ineffective towards stopping gun violence in schools, but I believe will instead create unhealthy mindsets of safety and what it truly means to be in a safe environment for this next generation.
Two, gun violence or gun threats aren’t strictly a K-12 issue. While typically less common than K-12 shootings, shootings at a university tend to be much more fatal. 32 students were killed and 26 injured in 2007 at Virginia Tech University. In 2015, nine students were killed and eight injured at Umpqua Community College in Oregon. Three students were killed in the Michigan State shootings in 2023.
When reports of a suspected shooter arose on campus last month, I wasn’t sure whether Auburn was about to join this horrific list or not.
There have been 146 gun-related incidents across the nation since the start of the year, with four months still left to go. If this information isn’t obscene enough for you to recognize a massive problem in our nation, then either blind patriotism or the incessant desensitization of our nation's media have run their course successfully.
When asked what steps could be taken to prevent these shocking numbers in September of 2024, our vice president JD Vance stated “I don’t like that this is a fact of life. [...] We've got to bolster security, so if a psycho wants to walk through the door and kill a bunch of children, they're not able to."
This type of rhetoric is appalling and insanely detached from humanity. It makes me sick to my stomach to hear politicians continue to claim that school shootings are inescapable “facts of life” and that the correct response to gun violence is supplying more guns and deploying more officers. It seems as though the right to bear arms is held higher as an American ideal than the lives of hundreds of children and faculty members.
“It’s the man that kills, not the gun,” cries the sympathizer, as he watches Fox News report the continual death of innocent children. If we continue to blame these tragedies strictly on mental health issues, why are we continuing to defund rehabilitations programs for the homeless, passing legislation allowing racial profiling for ICE and defunding suicide hot lines for the LGBTQ+ community?
During a forensics class in early September of last year, our teacher played for us the documentary on the Parkland High shooting in 2018. The documentary clearly left a heavy impact on students in the class, drawing their entire attention towards the events that transpired at Parkland.
There was always the underlying thought in the back of our minds, as we watched the documentary: “It wouldn’t happen to us.” Less than a week later, news broke of one of the deadliest shootings of the entire year at Apalachee high school in Georgia. Four died in the shooting.
What are pro-gun activists so scared about as they leave their house that forces them to conceal carry a life-ending weapon? What does it say about our nation that people feel such a strong need to always protect themselves? Why are people so willing to look past all of this tragedy for their own convenience of owning a gun? Why are we time and time again allowing unstable citizens and children access to buy these guns or access them without stricter security measures?
American gun violence in schools blows every other first-world nation out of the water in terms of how often they occur and the amount of deaths that result.
It’s a shame that the ideals of gun rights are still held to the heights they are today. The results of gun violence no longer shock American society in ways that they should, leaving us to repeat the same mistakes that are made every year.
The next step in American ignorance is to forget the events that transpire and move on until the next atrocity occurs. The families of the children harmed at the Annunciation Catholic church this past week won't forget the truth, and until our nation as a whole realizes the problematic priorities we hold highest, more and more families will suffer, as children and faculty members die every year.
“It makes no sense. One man's terror is another man's defense.” - Jesse Welles
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