I see young people on the news all the time lately after being trapped in a lockdown. These individuals that are seen on TV have stared death in the face, lost friends, their teachers lost students and most importantly, parents that lost children. That is what brought on my strong opinions about gun control and regulations. I don’t think we should take these weapons away completely but I don’t think there is any reason why any individual should be able to get an assault weapon, nor do I think that the teachers of this country should be allowed to carry a gun on them.
On Monday, March 5th at about 11:10 a.m., I walked out of a midterm thinking it was like any other day. My class normally ends at 11:20 so I had ten minutes to kill before I met up with my best friend for lunch. So I decided to go to the greenhouse and take care of what I had to do in there. As I was getting ready to leave, a professor came and told me that he had to lock the door because we were in lockdown. I started receiving texts from my friends telling me to stay safe. I had experienced lockdowns in high school but those were just drills, this turned out to be real, credible threat. The lockdowns in high school did not prepare me for the fear that started to race through my body when it finally set it that it was real. A friend of mine from high school was visiting Utica College that day and I remember texting her “I remember sitting in history class together during these lockdowns and giggling because we did not think we had to take it serious, we never thought it would be us. I’m not laughing anymore”.
I texted my family to inform them so they wouldn’t panic and waited in the greenhouse for the police to evacuate me. I was stuck in there till about 2:30-3:00 when the police finally came. They made me walk all the way to the cafe with my hands up in the air. I immediately tracked down my friends and informed my family that I was safe. I never in a million years thought that I would have to experience sitting in a lockdown. I will not be able to look at my favorite place on campus again without thinking about the lockdown and all the emotions that I was feeling during that time.
This whole ordeal made my opinion on the topic of guns even stronger. Also, by giving our teachers the right to carry a gun throughout a school, that is not going to make the students of this country feel any safer. I know I definitely would not feel any safer. I had a hard time enough trying to feel safe as the cops pointed their guns at me so why would a teacher having a weapon make me feel good? I’ll never truly understand the feelings the victims of these many tragedies felt since nobody was hurt, thank goodness for that. But I have felt a similar feeling and that just made my opinion on gun control get stronger. How many individuals need to die, how many more threats need to be made before the rest of the country realizes how much of an issue this truly is?