The Epidemic of a Lifetime: School Shootings

Oftentimes, I cannot believe we live in a world where school shootings occur. Other times, I can’t believe there was ever a world where they didn’t. I was born in December of 1999, eight months after the Columbine high school shooting. Columbine began an epidemic of violence against America’s most precious population - children. I never knew a world before this.

The Sandy Hook elementary school shooting occurred when I was a child myself. I remember vividly, because it occurred two days after my 13th birthday. I was in 7th grade, and I remember thinking about my little brother who was in 5th grade at that time. For months, I worried that he wouldn’t be safe in his elementary school. I hated the thought that he was at a different school than me - if anything were to happen to him, I’d be helpless. At 13, I began planning escape routes from my classroom and thinking about how I could save my brother from an active shooter.

When I was a senior in high school, there was the Stoneman-Douglas shooting. This one felt different. Stoneman-Douglas was a school almost identical to my own high school. It was in a similar wealthy suburb, with about the same student population of 3500 kids. 17 kids were murdered, and there were bursts of outrage from high school students - a generation of students who had grown up feeling unsafe at school. At my school, we walked out of third block in solidarity with students around the country. We demanded our voices be heard. We demanded our lives be protected. And still, nobody seemed to listen.

I distinctly remember a feeling of relief when I graduated high school, and not because I passed calculus. I was relieved because I would no longer have to be helplessly trapped in a building that could potentially be infiltrated by a domestic terrorist. Every single day, in every single class, I had an escape route or a plan of what I would do if there were an active shooter. I continued to think of my little brother, now in the same school, and how he would be my biggest priority if something were to happen.

I recently graduated college. Last month, 19 fourth grade students at Robb Elementary school in Uvalde, Texas were shot and killed during their school day. There’s video footage of the entire attack - the shots, the screams, the children running - and I am sick. I am so sick and tired of the unjust actions of evil people in this country. And even worse? The generation of adults who have done nothing to stop it.

I am in grad school studying to be an occupational therapist. I have considered working in schools, but I am not sure if I would be able to handle it. The fear that gripped me as a 13 year old still has its hand on me. I have been fortunate to have never encountered the atrocity of a school shooting first-hand, but I am unsure if I would be able to put myself in an environment where that could be a possibility.

I am only 22, and I already fear for my future children. I pray that they will experience a different America than I did - an America where they can go to school to learn and play without fear, and without creating escape routes. More than pray, however, I will vote. I will advocate. I will use my life experience and try to create a better future in the name of the kids who didn’t get one. I refuse to be part of another generation who does nothing.

image via HuffPost UK