By Henry Shorr
I don’t have anything witty to say about it. It’s upsetting and frustrating.
I graduated from high school the year before the Sandy Hook shooting. I was at the tail-end of the last generation of students to have never participated in an active shooter drill.
Before Sandy Hook, the most prominent school shooting I remember was the Virginia Tech debacle in 2007. In 2023, there have already been 13.
Thirteen school shootings. Just this year.
Day after day, month after month, year after year. Nothing changes because special interests continue to jam up the wheels in Washington D.C. Gun violence has overtaken automobile accidents as the number one killer of children and teens. And still, nothing changes.
Frankly, guns are the worst. Humans have created no other object thats sole purpose is to take the life of another being.
They will never take your guns; the Supreme Court ensured the whole, “well regulated militia” thing didn’t matter. I sure hope they start regulating them, though.
It’s not a mental health issue. It’s not an issue of gender, video games or whatever else the NRA decides is the current x-factor. It’s guns. They are too powerful and too easy to obtain.
I have a few ideas:
What makes the most sense, to me, is to treat guns like cars. We should have to obtain a learner’s permit, and take classes and a test before being able to buy or carry firearms. We should also be required to purchase gun insurance, the same way we do with our cars. Yes, you have a right to own a deadly weapon, but you should not have the right to own a weapon irresponsibly.
Also, civilians have no reason to own an automatic weapon. Stop selling them to the public. I don’t even like magazines. Make people reload their weapons bullet by bullet. It would give people more opportunity to stop a shooter if it takes longer for them to reload their weapon.
Finally, as Chris Rock said, ammunition should be way more expensive. If each bullet cost more than the weapon that fired it, people may think longer about using firearms so readily.
All in all, I’m sick of it. I don’t want to bring children into this world who will die at the hands of a school shooter.
My friends who are parents are terrified. My friends who are teachers are terrified. Students are terrified. The only people who don’t seem to be terrified are those who can actually make a difference by changing policy.
To those who love their guns and freedom more than they want to keep students and other civilians safe, next time you are wondering about why people my age aren’t having kids — this is why.
We’re terrified of sending them off to school to die at the hands of a completely preventable tragedy.
