On May 18, I was sitting on the couch in my mom’s living room watching Dear White People season two on Netflix. I had already seen it twice, but my mom hadn’t. We were on the episode where Lionel finds out who Alt Ivy really is, and I was engaged in the show, but then my concentration was broken by a high pitch whine: a notification on my phone. I was jubilant and immediately went to look at my phone, I was expecting a text from a lovely lady about weekend plans.
Unfortunately, I didn’t receive a text message but a breaking news alert. At first I was thinking the 45th president of the United States had lost his mind again, but it was far worse. The news alert was about the Santa Fe school shooting in Texas. I don’t remember which news outlet was covering it, but all I saw was 10 dead and 10 wounded in a school shooting, I immediately clicked off.
Shutting my eyes to the ugliness of the world is not usually my style. However, this last shooting made realize I had reached a breaking point. The breaking point was not because of how horrible the incident was but because of the current state of apathy I know America is in. My apathy towards the issue is not because of the never-ending violence but because of people, more specifically our government officials, not doing anything substantial to ensure the safety of children from gun violence.
I have seen a pattern all too familiar: a shooting happens, people scream at each other on social media and then go right back to the same old same old or, more infuriatingly, offer thoughts and prayers but nothing else and feel like they did something constructive for the issue.
When it comes to school shootings, society is collectively numb to the disturbing violence towards schoolchildren. Apathy cannot be our answer to the innocent lives lost to gun violence, our answer should be practical solutions to ensure the safety of the next generation.
2018 is shaping to be a deadly year for American school children as, according to data from the Department of Defense, more school students have died in school than military service members from incidents other than training accidents this year. However, that is not to say that schools are more dangerous. They are not. Soldiers are 50 times more likely to be killed than school children. But the data is pointing to a horrid reality that children will be exposed to even more violence in their schools for the rest of the year if nothing is done.
Another scary trend is the escalation of violence, as noted by CNN National Security Analyst Juliette Kayyem in her op-ed “Something important was different about this shooting.” She said, “While we do not know what animated Pagourtzis, we do know that a mere ‘school shooting’ did not seem enough for him. The use of explosive devices suggests that assailants who want some sort of ‘differentiator’ to distinguish themselves from any other school shooter, will seek more spectacular harms.”
Some kids feel unsafe and do not even question whether or not a shooting will happen at their school: for them, the question is when. Santa Fe survivor Paige spoke with Houston’s ABC affiliate reporter Foti Kallergis. “It’s been happening everywhere,” Paige said. “I’ve always kind of felt like eventually it was going to happen here, too.”
America, how long can the death of innocent lives be tolerated? How many bodies have to be robbed of life before we decide enough is enough? When will this nation hold its government accountable to enact gun laws that could save lives?
Mass shootings and gun violence are issues for the Wolfpack community. We all have children that we care about whether they’re siblings or mentees and we all do not want to turn on the television and see one of them as a statistic on the 6 o’clock news. That is why as a community we should strive to be more educated on the gun laws in our state and advocate for different gun control measures to make this state safer for the people we care about.
