On average, everyday 120 people die and 200 people are injured from gun violence. This is not a problem that we can sit idly by and let more and more people lose their lives from. There needs to be more people who care about this who are willing to get up and make a difference.
One organization that is desperately trying to make some sort of difference is Everytown For Gun Safety. Originally Everytown was called Mayors Against Gun Violence and was started by, as the name suggests, mayors. In 2006 13 mayors around the states combined into an organization to try and push laws for better gun safety. Then in 2012 Shannon Watts, a stay at home mom, created a group called Moms Demand Action in response to the horrific Sandy Hook shooting. A year later Moms Demand Action and Mayors Against Gun Violence merged together into what is now known as Everytown.
Then on February 14th, 2018 an expelled student killed 17 students and injured 17 more at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland Florida. This atrocity created a new wave of protests and movements to try and prevent something like this from ever happening again. One of the biggest movements was March For Our Lives, a protest that was created by the new Students Demand Action organization. This march had over 40 locations and 2.5 million people in attendance, yet even with media attention lawmakers turned a blind eye and continued to do nothing. And though it must have been so disheartening for no actions to be made, Students Demand Action continued to make protests and push for legislation in order to stop gun violence especially at schools.
The most recent protest was a nationwide walkout in reaction to the Texas elementary school shooting that killed 19 people. At 9am students and teachers from all over the nation walked out of the classroom. At SCVi the majority of students and a lot of teachers all joined in the quad to protest gun violence. We stood there with signs saying things such as “school is for learning not lockdowns”, “we deserve to feel safe”, and “fix this before I text my family from under a desk.” It was honestly surreal -the sheer amount of students there and the somber anger of it all.
There have been so many tragedies over the past couple years, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Saugus, and the list goes on and on for pages. The majority of people have become too numb to it all. Children dying in their classrooms has become something that just happens, something that I myself have caught myself thinking “when” and not “if.” School shooting drills happen as often as earthquake and fire drills. This is not normal and this is not ok. No student should be in fear every time they hear a loud bang. We shouldn’t have to lock our doors, teachers shouldn’t have to act as guards. This horror should never have started much less should it seemingly never stop. The time to act was before the trigger was pulled in the first place. No one acted then, so we need to act now.
If you are interested in joining students demand action please go to https://studentsdemandaction.org/
Diamante Crescitelli-Cameron
Sources
“Our History” EveryTown For Gun Safety: https://www.everytown.org/
“How Shannon Watts went from stay at home mom to founder of the largest gun violence prevention org in the U.S” MSNBC: https://www.msnbc.com/know-
“Teen gunman kills 17, injures 17 at Parkland, Florida high school” History:https://www.history.
“Students Demand Action Walkout Activation Toolkit” Students Demand Action: https://studentsdemandaction.
