Tired of gun violence
Columbine.
Sandy Hook.
Uvalde.
The list of mass shootings in schools goes on and on.
When is enough finally enough?
When does the death of children in schools to gun violence finally stop?
When does going to a grocery store, mall, dance club, movie theater or anywhere in public not require citizens knowing all the exits and having an escape plan in case today is the day you come face to face with a gun wielder looking to terrorize the populace?
In my freshman year of high school, there were random smaller incidents in Arkansas that already pointed out possible threats of violence to schools.
In my sophomore year of high school, Columbine happened. That one changed the atmosphere and fear in school buildings for me moving onward.
I’ve watched the same cycle repeat itself after almost every one of these shootings – highly scrutinize the shooter’s life for details that can be blamed aside from ready access to weapons, use that scapegoat as the thing that needs to be reformed and take no action on the underlying problems of easy access to firearms for all citizens and then people act surprised when the same incident happens, next time with a higher body count.
After Sandy Hook, when no action was taken by lawmakers, not even a vote on the most common-sense gun measures, it was devastating. The way Parkland survivors were vilified for taking up this cause as the one they were tired of seeing was aggravating.
And here we are again. A shooter armed with weapons more ready for a battlefield walking into a fourth-grade classroom and opening fire. More than 20 dead. And reporting of the missteps of security officers on scene all scream out as well that the answer for gun violence isn’t more guns in the fray, but the answer is also not creating chokepoints at schools.
It’s exhausting and heartbreaking and frustrating, despite a majority of people wanting something, anything to be done to curb access to weapons to the general populace.
Yet all we have are more dead elementary students in an incident that could have been prevented.