gun violence - where do we draw the line?

by Chaitna Deshmukh and Muriel Moon, Reporters

Opinion/Editorial

CW: Gun violence, death

In the aftermath of the most recent school shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, the nation is once again grieving. But if we are to prevent further tragedies, that grief must be transformed into action, not simply thoughts and prayers.

These events have once again sparked outrage and massive upheaval around the impact of the lack of gun control—and the easy access to semi-automatic weapons—on the number and severity of school and other mass shootings. Countries like Canada and New Zealand have responded to mass shootings with strict gun control, yet we as a nation seem to be unable to. Many students will remember protesting our current gun laws following the Parkland shooting in Florida, but four years later, these tragedies are still occurring.

As of 2018, over 311,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since the Columbine shooting. Here in Washington, gun control measures are stricter, with universal background checks, a ban on high-capacity magazines, and restrictions on the sale of semi-automatic weapons to anyone younger than age 21 (Pae). These rules are in place to protect children.

However, the fear of gun violence is still real for students here at Kamiak and throughout the district. The accidental lockdown at school last month made this very clear—students could be seen sprinting through the halls and shoving each other to get to safety, an experience that will remain a vivid image in all our minds.

In 2016, Mukilteo was devastated by a mass shooting by an individual with an AR-15. Several former Kamiak students, the shooter’s classmates, were killed, and the event remains an agonizing memory in Kamiak's history.

As recently as 2018, an ACES student meticulously planned to attack his own high school, and was only narrowly prevented from doing so by his grandmother, who turned him into the police after finding his Hi-Point carbine rifle and detailed plans. This student, who attended Kamiak for some time, recounted that he decided between ACES and Kamiak by the flip of a coin. He is recorded to have said “**** Kamiak you ****ers got lucky. I hope someone follows in my footsteps and gets you dumb ****s. I can’t wait to **** up ACES! April is gonna be a blast.”

The former Kamiak student had planned to attack on the anniversary of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting. The day after he was arrested, a shooting at Stoneman Douglass High School in Parkland left 17 dead.

Later that same year, as students watched a football game, gunshots in the parking lot of Mariner High School resulted in a panicked evacuation of the Goddard Stadium football field and stands.

These events have a lasting impact on students—anyone who has been in the lunchroom when a bag of chips pops too loudly can attest to that. Teachers, too, find themselves in the awful position of being responsible for students' safety in situations they have never been trained for. Even when teachers are trained, as they were in Uvalde, they are not able to protect themselves or their students effectively against such deadly weapons.

Each time that the United States experiences a mass shooting, it is essential to ask ourselves, why does our country have such a disproportionate number of these massacres? In the time that the two of us—both Kamiak seniors—have been in school (2009 to 2022), there have been over a thousand incidents or threats of gun violence in K-12 schools, and sixty-seven of them included an active shooter.

It is because of these statistics—because of school shootings like Uvalde—that despite incidents of gun violence in our community, we still consider ourselves lucky at Kamiak. But how can our society repair the trauma that gun violence has caused us? When will we stop tearing apart each new generation?

Some argue that students’ mental health problems cause school shootings. This issue should absolutely be addressed, but it cannot be an excuse to place the responsibility for these tragedies on children and educators, the very people who must be protected from them. Active shooter drills and other protective measures—intended to help victims help themselves—have only created more fear, with little evidence to show they improve safety.

Our elected officials have the power to make changes that will save lives, as has been done in many other countries. And yet so many of them actually fight alongside the NRA to increase access to guns. Even a tragedy as horrific as the shooting in Uvalde couldn't stop former president Donald Trump and Texas senator Ted Cruz from speaking at the convention—just a few hours away from Robb Elementary School, where the shooting took place. These officials take absolutely no responsibility for an issue that has long gone unaddressed under their watch.

Make no mistake. Lawmakers must either recognize gun violence for what it is—the deadliest threat to their children today—or we will find new lawmakers.

Sources

Cheng, Britt. “12 stats to help inform the gun control debate.” NPR, 27 May 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/05/27/1101774780/gun-control-debate-statistics. Accessed 30 May 2022.

Cox, John Woodrow, et al. “How many school shootings have happened in America since Columbine? - Washington Post.” The Washington Post, 27 May 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/local/school-shootings-database/. Accessed 30 May 2022.

Ferré, Luis. “Democratic States Push Gun Control Bills with Congress Gridlocked.” The New York Times, 29 May 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/29/us/states-gun-restrictions.html. Accessed 30 May 2022.

Grabow, Chip, and Linda Rose. “School shootings in the US compared with the rest of the world.” CNN, 21 May 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/21/us/school-shooting-us-versus-world-trnd/index.html. Accessed 30 May 2022.

Green, Sara Jean. “Mukilteo shooting suspect jealous over ex, bought rifle a week ago, police say.” The Seattle Times, 1 August 2016, https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/document-mukilteo-shooting-suspect-was-jealous-over-ex-purchased-rifle-a-week-ago/. Accessed 30 May 2022.

Gun Violence Archive. “Mass Shootings in 2022.” Gun Violence Archive, 2022, https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting. Accessed 30 May 2022.

Naval Postgraduate School. “K-12 Shooting Database.” K-12 School Shooting Database - data-map, Center for Homeland Defense and Security, 2022, https://www.chds.us/ssdb/data-map/. Accessed 30 May 2022.

Pae, Christine. “Here are the Washington state laws intended to prevent gun violence.” KING 5, 27 May 2022, https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/gun-violence-control-laws-washington-state/281-a96d62ef-772f-4c1b-8393-67e0b0f989b0. Accessed 30 May 2022.

“The Impact of Active Shooter Drills in Schools.” Everytown Research & Policy, 3 Sept. 2020, everytownresearch.org/report/the-impact-of-active-shooter-drills-in-schools/.

Torchinsky, Rina. “Days after the Uvalde Shooting, the NRA Convention Went on as Planned.” NPR, NPR, 29 May 2022, https://www.npr.org/2022/05/29/1101994074/nra-convention- houston-ends.

DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the various authors in this paper do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of Kamiak High School or The Gauntlet.