Heartland

February 14th, Parkland, FL. For residents, Valentines day comes around with 70-degree weather and sunshine. The students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School prepare to celebrate the holiday festivities and begin to pack up their bags and finish their last classes as the school day comes to a close. However, as the students, ages 14-18, begin to leave, Nikolas Cruz, 19, slips into the building and unloads his semi-automatic AR-15 rifle, killing 17 and injuring dozens of others.

The Parkland High School Shooting was the 30th mass shooting in 2018, and echoing the sentiments of news sources from The Onion to The New York Times, “In the only country where this regularly happens.” As of today, the Parkland High School shootings go down as one of the deadliest mass shootings and the deadliest high school shooting in American History.

When I heard the news of the attack, I was walking out of my Creative Writing class. One of my friends pulled up alongside me as I was leaving the classroom and told me there had been another school shooting. My first response was “Oh no, not again, how many this time?” This will always be one of the most cynical quotes I have ever stated and it breaks my heart to even repeat it in text. What triggered my disappointing and disgusting response? The fact that this is business as usual. On Jan. 23rd, a 15-year-old student shot and killed two students at his high school in Kentucky. For most of America, the news of a mass shooting follows with a numbed response and the action brought towards it swept away by the sea of hashtags and prayers rushing to the aid of the victims. However, as I am not the first, nor will I be the last, to point out that those prayers will not bring back those who have died. It is a simple excuse to push aside the true problem.

The shooter had a history of violence and disobedience that the school was aware of. They understood that he was a general threat to their student body, therefore, they expelled him and banned him from the campus. Even in light of this and reports from fellow students, Superintendent Robert Runcie stated: “Typically, you see in these situations, that there could have been signs out there.” As if the shooter's words left on a youtube comment reported to the FBI “ I’m going to be a professional school shooter” was not enough for a cause of alarm. His family, knowing of his disturbing habits, let him attain a rifle “As long as it was locked up.” they stated, yet they let him keep the key. These, all ways this shooting could have been prevented, but what would have truly made the difference? What would have allowed for all 17 victims to return home to their families that Wednesday? If there was no gun.

The shooters behavior was one thing but if he hadn't had a gun, if the school reported his behavior to the police, if his family took action, if someone said: “Hey maybe this kid shouldn't own a Semi-Automatic rifle designed for military personnel and having the power to take whole countries and lives.” Many supporters of firearms took to Twitter today to discuss that if the faculty had firearms then the incident may have been stopped. Joe Walsh, a former congressman, tweeted “In a free society, you can't stop bad people who are intent on killing. What you can do is protect yourself. And those around you. With a gun. Protect our children. Put armed adults in our schools.”

Well, Marjory Stoneman Douglas had an active police officer on site equipped with a firearm and it was reported that he did not encounter the shooter. In a rebuttal, Twitter user Mark Popham recounts the story of “American Sniper”: Chris Kyle.

“Every time another one of these mass shootings happen - right when the Republicans start telling us that the answer is more guns, guns for everyone, guns for teachers, guns for students - I think about Chris Kyle. Chris Kyle was the American Sniper guy - a highly decorated Navy Seal sniper with 150 confirmed kills in the Iraq War. Whatever else is true about him, he definitely was very good at shooting guns and used to being in combat environments. On February 2nd, 2013, Kyle and a friend took a 25-year-old Marine veteran to a shooting range, in the hope of helping him with his PTSD. On the way Kyle realized that the guy was dangerous, and texted his friend as such; the friend replied affirmatively. If this was a movie the 25-year-old would have freaked out and drawn a weapon, and Kyle would have shot him or shot the gun out of his hand or held him at gunpoint. But it wasn't a movie. What actually happened was a Navy Seal military sniper and his friend were both shot to death with Kyle's own guns. Both of them were armed, and neither had time to even unholster their weapons. Kyle knew that the man he was with was dangerous. He knew he was armed - he armed him! To the degree that anyone could be forewarned and prepared for a situation, Kyle was. And yet the other guy shot two armed and trained men dead, got in a car and drove away. I can spend the rest of my life at a gun range and not have the facility with firearms that Chris Kyle did. So how the fuck is a gun going to help me, or a terrified social studies teacher because it doesn't look like it did shit for him. No amount of training and no gun on your belt is going to let you dodge a bullet or keep it from ripping the life out of you. Every student and teacher at that school could have been trained military personnel with access to weapons and that many people could have still died. We know that because the 2009 Fort Hood shooting - which occurred on a MILITARY BASE - killed 13. Today a bunch of men is going to go to a gun store and they're going to buy their third or 10th or 25th gun, because this scares them, and they think the gun is going to keep them safe. They're going to be Action Movie Chris Kyle, not Actual Real Life Murdered Chris Kyle. And it's going to keep on happening. It's going to get worse and worse.”

After I had heard the news of the shooting in Parkland I did more research. I am a 17-year-old senior in a High School with a population of around 3,600 students, Marjory Stoneman Douglas has a population of around 3,200. That’s when the reality of the situation set in. That this high school could have been mine. The videos posted on social media depicting bullets flying through classrooms could have been my classrooms, they could've been my brothers or my girlfriends.  The students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas suffered a tragedy that no school or person should have to go through, yet the reality of their situation is that it could've been anyones. That is destructive.

Earlier this year I was enrolled in a leadership course with a task of involving ourselves in a freshman classroom and creating a safe and healthy learning environment, useful for the rest of their days has high schoolers. As I sat in that class on Thursday, the day after the shooting, and looked and they're shining faces, their responses of how much we’ve helped them throughout this year, it brought me to tears to think about someone taking that away from them. The dream of success and hope, shattered in an instant and the flame we lit for a better opportunity to learn, put out.  That is the reality I, they and students everywhere now live with. The fear of dying in a place meant to start the rest of our lives.

We look to the people in charge of our decisions to make a change yet they stay silent, in their heads, with their prayers. Shouting from the mountain tops, they yell “Nothing could’ve been done.” The victim's parents and children being told “Our deepest condolences, but these things happen.” Pause. Imagine the thing, the person you give your entire life to, the person you love more than anything, your child, is killed. You look for hope in the words of others and the response you are given in your darkest time is that the light of your life’s death is just a coincidence and “an unfortunate situation.” Unbearable.

There is room for change. There shouldn't be a budget on human life. There are things that can be done and good that can come from it. Countries such as Germany, Sweden, Australia, England, Japan, Norway, and Denmark all would agree. As mass shootings are almost to zero there. America needs to take a note, to understand that to give up on the future of thousands of teens across America so that they can have a gun in their drawer and shoot with their buddies on the weekends is despicable and selfish.

Now listen, I and every other American fighting for gun control know that action will also not bring back the dead but it will prevent others from happening. As a high school student, I don't want to see my educational environment turn into a maximum security prison nor have the worry of it becoming a battleground. Lives are not expendable.

Finally, I want to leave the names of the 17 fatal victims in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting and let it be known that their names and deaths maybe me remembered and not forgotten:

Scott Biegel - 35, Teacher

Alyssa Alhadeff - 14, Freshman, Soccer Player

Martin Duque Anguiano - 14, Freshman

Nicholas Dworet - 17, Senior, Swimmer

Aaron Feis - 37, Security and Assistant Football coach

Jaime Guttenberg - 14, Freshman, Dancer

Christopher Hixon - 49, School Athletic Director

Luke Hoyer - 15, Freshman, Basketball player

Cara Loughran - 14, Freshman

Gina Montalto - 14, Freshman, Color Guard

Joaquin Oliver - 17, Senior, Basketball player

Alaina Petty - 14, Freshman, Volunteer work

Meadow Pollack - 18, Senior

Helena Ramsay - 17, Senior

Alex Schachter - 14, Freshman, Marching Band (Trombone)

Carmen Schentrup - 16, 2018 National Merit Scholarship semifinalist

Peter Wang - 15, Freshman, J.R.O.T.C.