This article was originally published on March 26, 2021. Boulder faced this strategy on March 22, 2021.
I live less than a mile away from the King Soopers on Table Mesa where 10 people tragically and needlessly lost their lives on March 22. I heard the sirens and helicopters from my bedroom before I even knew what was going on. When I eventually learned about the situation, my first response should have been fear. I should have been shocked at the news. Instead, I just sighed and thought, “Here we go again.”
I moved to Colorado in 2005, when I was just five years old. In that time, there have been 11 shootings, several of them close to home. My house is about six miles away from the Aurora movie theater where the infamous shooting took place, and my parents knew a few of the people who died. My middle school went under lockdown during the Arapahoe High School shooting, where I started crying uncontrollably because I didn’t know the danger was not at my school. I watched the news anxiously as the STEM School shooting took place a few cities over my senior year, feeling a pit in my stomach as I learned a fellow senior died just weeks before graduation.
This is not new to me.
I feel so much about this situation. I’m scared, just to go to the grocery store now. I’m sad that my community lost 10 of its members who were just trying to do their weekly shopping. Mostly, though, I’m angry. Because this never should have happened in the first place.
I was born the year after the Columbine shooting, which means I have never lived in a world where shootings were not common events. For a while, growing up, I would hear about a new shooting and think, “This is it. This one will lead to change.” I’ve always been wrong.
I feel hopeless writing this because I don’t have the answers. I don’t know how we’re supposed to handle this, and I don’t know what we can do to get the change we desperately need. All I know is that I’m taking this one day at a time.
Take breaks from the news, hug your friends, and cope however you need to. Please, also, take advantage of the many resources CU and the city of Boulder have to offer. You are not in this alone, and we will grieve and take care of each other through this difficult time.
I’m hoping that we will see gun regulation soon and no one will have to fear going to normal places ever again.