Kyran Cates
Reporter
Three years ago, on Feb. 14, 2018, a gunman walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School with a semi-automatic rifle. The world will never forget the events that followed.
After shooting into several classrooms, the gunman pulled the fire alarm and executed students and staff as they filled the halls, killing 17 people and wounding 17 others in only seven minutes.
Teachers ushered as many students as possible into their classrooms before locking their doors, turning off the lights and attempting to remain unnoticed by the shooter.
Other students, trapped in the halls during the chaos, locked themselves in the bathroom. Anyone unable to hide was left vulnerable to the will of the shooter. Police entered the building several minutes later after the gunman had already fled the scene.
Parkland, Florida hasn’t been the same ever since, and it likely never will be. The entire world felt the weight of this tragedy in the weeks following Valentine’s Day, as conversations about school shootings and gun culture filled our heads. People realized that this incident wasn’t an isolated event but a periodically recurring tragedy in schools across the United States.
“You get desensitized and these tragedies just become a norm, but I won’t stop feeling gut-wrenched when hearing about these setbacks,” said Idaho State University freshman, Boone Hunter. “I don’t want to live in a world where kids are labeled as survivors of mass murder.”
Since the Columbine shooting in 1999, there have been over 231 school shootings U.S. educational facilities on all levels have experienced the ripples of terror caused by these attacks. Hundreds of thousands of students and staff have been traumatized by the gun violence ravaging the nation.
“I wish I were joking when I say that it’s a constant, hovering fear at this point,” said ISU freshman Jodie Schwicht. “I’m genuinely more afraid of finding myself in an active shooter situation than of getting cancer, or something of the like.”
Incidents like the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012 and the Santa Fe High School shooting in 2018 have further proven the horrifying state of mass murders in the U.S. It should come as no surprise that news of these massacres has taken its toll on students over the years.
“As a future teacher, the subject of school shootings crosses my mind often,” said Breeawn Clegg, a secondary education major at ISU. “It’s a big fear of mine and it’s something I had to consider before choosing that line of work.”
March For Our Lives protests emerged, insisting that a student should never lose their life to gun violence. Still today March For Our Lives is fighting for students’ rights and demanding that the U.S. government implement sweeping changes to prevent even one more death by gun violence on school grounds.
“I acknowledge that the mass-shooting epidemic that America is facing today is a multi-faceted issue…but the thing is that we haven’t done anything of real value,” said Schwicht.
Since Feb. 14, 2018, the U.S. has seen no nationwide changes to gun control legislation, mental health resources for students and school shooting preparedness or prevention.
Just before the first anniversary of the Parkland shooting, survivors of the massacre published a book titled “Parkland Speaks” which contains graphic recounts of the tragedy from multiple students’ perspectives, in addition to poems, journal entries, speeches and art memorializing the deceased. This book provides a glimpse into the life of school shooting survivors and hopes to inspire legislative and cultural change in the United States.
On Valentine’s day three years ago, students and staff went to school expecting a day of fun, love and appreciation. By the end of the day, the bodies of 34 people contained bullets, and half of them were dead. Gun violence ends lives and destroys innumerable others, yet the U.S. hasn’t made the drastic changes to curb any more tragedy.
