There have been 50 school shootings this year in the United States, as of Sept. 9. Last year, there were 82 shootings: the highest there have been for the past 16 years.
No easy transition can be made from these numbers. These numbers testify to deaths, to horror, to failure on our society’s part. But the bell always rings, and school always starts.
Amidst assemblies, homecoming, and Friday night games, our schools persist and insist upon building morale, maintaining tradition. This practice is simultaneously precarious and absolutely necessary for the health of our schools.
Gun violence does not serve only as a physical threat, but threatens the very safety and optimism of a school as a whole. To continue on in cheer within our schools is not callous, but a reminder of the motivation for protection. An insistence on the light in the midst of the unknown of the dark.
“School spirit is made up of the people in the school, and the safety of these people is important to the spirit,” Sarah Williams (10) said.
Fifty shootings this year. We live in the eternal struggle of this fact, we strive for some resemblance of the usual.
We’ve heard the spouted statistics before, but we cannot let this repetition numb us, drown us in normalcy. Because this death is not normal, and it never should be.
Every death should shock, astonish, and sadden. This is not said to be crude, to suggest such a deprivation of humanity that these deaths do not haunt. But we allow our vulnerability to justify within ourselves a willing ignorance. In the face of fear, we turn away.
We must never turn away. Let this horror rise within you as momentum for the power we have. It should spark change. We should spark change.
“We live in a society that we have to fear everyday that one person could somehow get in with weapons commit a heinous crime,” Nathan Goodman (12) said. “Friends of mine and I occasionally ask each other do you fear that it could happen to us and we all usually respond with ‘sadly, yes.’”
To our politicians: Now is not the time to use children’s death as a platform to run, as a tactic for which you must tactically argue. These are lives. These are deaths. We are mortals, that can end this staggering mortality. It is within our reach. Breaching a compromise is the minimum.
It is not enough.
Every day, it is not enough. We deserve better. Our children deserve better. Let us create a world where our first graders do not assume intruder drills come biweekly.
Let us return to a world where, with a shot ringing in the air, the entire assembly is on its feet for the basketball team’s 3-pointer. Let us create a world where our clubs are noticed, celebrated, represent a posterity, rather than a peaked present.
Let us remember that a school prepares us for the future, and it is that future we must protect.
Please don’t be deceived: There is hope. Hope lives in every inch of every school in our nation. Our actions have consequences, and impact. We can make a difference.
The biggest lie we tell ourselves, the most harmful lie, is that there is nothing that we can do. That any action we take is unimportant, and ineffective.
In reality, there are actual, sincere ways that we can advocate, that we can make a difference in this issue. Awareness is the first step.
Fostering a safe school environment, by including everyone under the umbrella of school spirit, where students feel secure talking to adults, is revolutionary. This communication is vital.
We can push for certain safety measures, encourage further training but also urge systemic shifts at the roots, at the legislative level. We must not let political alignments blind us from seeing that we are all human, and we all want this senseless misery to end.
We can help prevent this violence by voicing our opinion in a productive way, and listening to others. Doing research. Finding where you can help.
Every individual is affected by school gun violence in the United States. Every individual can, and must, do their part.
Our school spirit should never haunt us.
