Since Columbine in 1999, there have been 417 school shootings resulting in the deaths of hundreds of students and staffs. Two more students and two teachers died when a 14-year-old entered Apalachee High School in Winder and opened fire last week.
Apalachee is an hour away from my high school in Dunwoody. During day of the shooting and the aftermath, my emotions were disoriented and chaotic and still are. I am left feeling that, even though I am only 17 years old, my life is in danger and I am not safe, even in school.
Credit: Contr
Credit: Contr
This is a feeling not only felt by me but my peers. The consensus among us is that a dark cloud has risen over not only our Georgia high school, but across our daily lives.
I remember receiving the news report that there was another mass shooting at a school. When I found out it was Apalachee, I was distraught. I couldn’t fathom such an event happening this close to me and had an overwhelming fear that Dunwoody could be next.
No students should ever fear for their lives. Unfortunately, the issue of mass gun violence is not addressed enough. Even though we are the primary victims in school shootings, students are not given a strong enough voice to advocate for ourselves. With that lack of voice also comes a lack of care for our mental health and the irreparable damage gun violence does to our psyche.
Gun violence, especially to children, is constant. Two years ago, a shooter claimed the lives of 21 in Uvalde, Texas. Six years ago, a shooter took the lives of 17 in Parkland, Florida. Nearly a dozen years ago, a shooter killed 26 at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.
It was 25 years ago that two shooters murdered 13 and then killed themselves at Columbine High School, Colorado. That horrific shooting was supposed to spark change but has now become a faint memory as so many other deadly shootings have followed. They have now become normalized in our culture. Indeed, U.S. Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, described school shootings as “a fact of life.”
Politicians offer no solutions to keep guns out schools but put the burden on students and teachers to lock doors and hide in coat rooms. Teachers should care about safety but shouldn’t have to consider that locking a door or properly carrying out a lockdown drill is a matter of life or death. Students should be able to walk to their classes in school and go to gym class or lunch without worrying about where the exits are.
The real people who should be worrying about this issue are our leaders that set Georgia gun policy and, unfortunately, they haven’t worried enough.
It is inconceivable to me how weapons of war are allowed to enter our schools and classrooms and how they are allowed to murder innocent children. It is also inconceivable to me that since Columbine, actions to end gun violence have been swept under the rug with only the most minor changes made as deaths in these incidents become increasingly normalized.
I can only hope as a young person that our generation will be the ones to end this violence so people, especially children, will be safe where they should be safe: in schools, churches, supermarkets and movie theaters. We will no doubt not be the last generation to experience this problem, so it is up to us to stop it.
Daniel Herrera, 17, is a senior at Dunwoody High School.
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