On the afternoon of Wednesday, February 14, 2018, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida became the scene of the deadliest school shooting since Sandy Hook. Fourteen students and three faculty members were killed, with another fourteen were injured.
The shooter was identified as nineteen-year-old Nikolas Cruz, a former student who was expelled from Stoneman Douglas. Cruz, who suffered from depression, made his way through the three-story building on campus armed with an AR-15 semi-automatic style rifle, concealed in his bag, and began firing shots into various classrooms.
Flash forward to the following Saturday where students, many of whom endured the trauma of the school shooting, gathered at the federal courthouse in Fort Lauderdale to speak out about gun violence. Emma Gonzales, a senior at Stoneman Douglas, delivered a speech, calling out lawmakers’ B.S. responses to mass shootings in the past. Gonzales said that she and her fellow students would take it upon themselves to “give their elected officials a ‘piece of [their] mind’”. Videos of her passionate speech went viral on the Internet, shared with millions of people across social media.
Voices like Gonzales can help break the never-ending cycle of mass shootings. Congress and citizens alike will always send their condolences to the victims after the trauma, but while there are citizens who have been actively advocating for change, there is never a significant response by Congress members to do more legislative wise. This cycle will not be broken until stricter gun control laws, such as mandatory licensing and training, are enacted and enforced. In doing so, Congress members must stand up to the NRA and stop taking thousands of dollars in donations from them. And if those members of Congress still refuse to acknowledge their glaringly obvious choice of greed and power over the greater good, then it is our job as American citizens to vote for new leadership who will listen to our call for action in this November’s midterm elections.
There will always be people who will disagree with increased gun regulation, arguing that it is infringing on their Second Amendment Right to Bear Arms or that stricter laws won’t prevent all guns from falling into the wrong hands. First of all, the Second Amendment word for word states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”; which, in past context, meant that the members of a “well-regulated militia” were the only ones who had a right to bear arms. The Second Amendment was written during a time where each state formed a militia if its safety was compromised, as there was not a nationally recognized military; seeing as we now have a military, the Second Amendment does not give every citizen the right to own a gun. Second of all, enacting stricter regulations on guns will significantly decrease the chances of having a gun fall into the wrong hands. In a perfect world, owners who have obtained their guns legally, have passed the required tests initially, at every renewal period, and who keep their guns safely stored should have the right to own a gun. By all means, I am not advocating for all guns to be taken away, but I do see the reason behind changing the age to purchase a gun to twenty-one (it’s currently eighteen) and banning dangerous assault rifles.
If the best thing that we as a country can do to prevent future mass shootings is to hold active shooter drills on school campuses or create an industry of selling bulletproof backpacks and other products that will give people peace of mind knowing that it has the potential to provide minimal protection from a shooter, then we have not done enough to insure supposed safe spaces like schools and movie theaters are truly safe. Everytown for Gun Safety, Sandy Hook Promise, 5 Calls, and Coalition to Stop Gun Violence are some of the gun control advocacy groups whose mission is to put a stop to the all-too-familiar nightmare.
‘History repeats itself’ is a common saying, but the desensitization this country has experienced regarding gun violence perpetuates the cycle of offering “thoughts and prayers” as an acceptable response to tragedy rather than creating actual change.