March 6

Journal 1: Real Story Introduction (Initial Ideas)

I am a member of March for Our Lives at the High School- a club aimed at talking about and solving the issue of gun violence across our country especially in regards to school shootings. While I must admit that I am not the most active memeber, I had free time last week and decided to attend their meeting after school. It was a seemingly easy day as they were "just" watching a few short films, so I planned to leave early and beat the traffic. Yet, once I sat down, I did not get back up until the bell rang. The videos shown had cut deep. One was taken as a real-time school shooting at an elementary school (1, 2, 3, All Eyes On Me) and the other one was an animated short film on Netflix titled If Anything Happens I Love You, portraying the lives of a family after loosing their daughter due to gun violence. In conjuction with my newfound interest in law and humanities, I wish to explore the topic of gun violence in my next SDA. It will pose a challenge with its sensitive nature, but I believe I am ready to steer away from my personal life, expand my horizons, and open my eyes to the world around me. 

To keep to my theme of coins, I decided to test my luck and search fun gun violence + coins. While initially getting a response on how people may partake in such acts for money, I eventually stumbled upon an article that was perfect for this SDA yet terrifying at the same time. There was a real life story about a highschool boy in 2018 and how his grandmother called the police. She had found his journal that detailed a plan to shoot up the school he attended and, included in it, was a segment talking about how that school had won the toss. While his Grandmother saved the day by calling 911, it shakes me what would've happened if she hadn't and what has happened to schools nation-wide. The bizarre connection of choosing which school to shoot based on a coin toss drew me in immediately. WHAT ARE THE ODDS? Then, thinking more on the odds of things, I looked up the likelihood of a person in the United States being affected by gun violence- 59% of all adults have experienced it at some point in their lives. That's a higher probability than having a coin land on heads (50%), meaning you are more likely to be affected by gun violence in your life than you are to flip a coin on heads. Thus, this SDA is sure to bring about emotions such as the horror I felt realizing this sad fact.  My new theme for this SDA is going to stick with coins, but explore this never before heard story in an attempt to recognize the flaws in our environment.

Now, the news about this incident isn't well known for two reasons: 1) there are so many school shootings that all the stories get lost into a jumble and 2) due to the grandmother saving the day, there was no actual death that occured or real incident to report. What if he had been able to follow through with his plans? What is the reasoning behind a school shooter? Is that reasoning worth exploring? How to stop gun violence? Do most school shooters write down their thoughts? While many of my questions stem from the unknown perspective of the person committing the crime, for my SDA, I am most interested in focusing on the Grandma's perspective (partly beacuse I am not ready to tackle writing from the perspective of a shooter). The countless news articles I read all say the same thing- it took a lot of courage for the Grandma to do that. "'This is a case where the adage ‘see something, say something’ potentially saved many lives,' Everett Police Chief Dan Templeman said." (The Washington Post). The concept of being aware and responding to situations quickly is what I want the key takeaway to be. By focusing on the killer, the moral of the story is vague. Ex. the lesson learned could be to ensure the people around you are okay, which, to be honest, isn't in your control save for a slight degree of it. On the other hand, "see something say someting" is definetly in your control and a great key takeaway that applies to everyone's lives and to not just gun-related things. I want to explore the strength of the Grandma especially since we have this view of weak and helpless elderly.