We stand together, raise our right hands over our chest, and look to a flag, “with liberty and justice for all”, we repeat in a daily seance, pleading for our liberty to yield true, wishing for the right to self-determination by living a full life. Yet, dropped bullet shells continue to litter hallways where once pencils slipped out of hands, and children’s scared tears roll down their cheeks where joking gossip used to spread. We, the children of America, are being murdered at the hands of our gun safety laws.
One hundred and twelve. One hundred and twelve school shootings in America have occurred in 2024 so far in which someone was injured or killed, according to Gun Violence America. And there are still 11 days left in the year.
One hundred and twelve of those school shootings were preventable with reasonable gun safety laws.
Gun violence in America isn’t a way of life. We can’t ever let ourselves brush past it. America stands alone among the developed world with its rate of firearm homicides, multitudes higher than all other similarly developed countries.
The problem lies in the legislation we have on gun safety laws. In many states, people can get guns ranging from pistols to rifles, with little to no background checks. Additionally, with a lack of reasonable restrictions, children have often been able to take their parents’ guns and commit school shootings.
Many people get the topic of gun control wrong, most supporters of gun safety laws do not want to take away people’s 2nd Amendment right to possess a gun, they want restrictions on who can get a gun to stop preventable gun violence.
Background checks ought to be a way of life for those who want guns. Psychological evaluations should be required to make sure people aren’t getting guns to commit shootings. National laws need to be in place against guns being accessible to children in houses and cars.
These simple steps prevent the commonplace, senseless shootings that have become a horrific part of society, unique to the United States.
As we go into the winter holiday season, parents who expected to watch their kids open up presents this Christmas, grieve instead. They join thousands of parents whose children were stolen from them, including parents from Newtown, Conn., where 12 years and two days before the Madison, Wisc. shooting this Monday, they endured the same unbearable pain.
Guns remain the leading cause of death for children and teenagers in America, and here we are, 12 years later, going through the same holiday-time school shootings. The Onion gets it right when they publish the same article every time there is a mass shooting in our country: “’No way to prevent this,’ Says The Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens”. Many Americans act like nothing can be done, but we have the solutions available to us, and still, I pose a single question to lawmakers nationwide: how many more children are killed before learning isn’t deadly?
