Enough is enough

Enough is enough

Every once in a while, a tragedy confounds the nation, toppling the once invisible barriers that provided a blissful facade of safety, searing holes in our trust of humanity and reminding us to be grateful that we’re alive. Our most recent reminder was the February 14 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people lost their lives and 15 others were wounded at the hands of a single gunman. A 19-year-old, mentally unstable adolescent, who legally—according to the current laws of the United States of America—acquired an AR-15 style rifle, entered a place of learning, and committed these hateful and atrocious crimes. In the wake of this senseless horror, we are left with the frightening question of whether there are others out there, silently plotting similar devastation through the use of an easily accessible firearm. 

Sadly, we are a generation of students who have had no choice but to prepare—as if one could ever truly be prepared—for this type of unspeakable monstrosity. Lockdown drills are characteristic of the American teenager’s high school experience, and from the very first week of every school year, we commit the motions of hiding—of hitting the light switch, snapping down the blinds, and fighting for the spot in the corner of the room least visible from the window—to memory. 

We have grown accustomed to these attacks, passively hoping that each horrible shooting will be the last, and allowing time to erode our paranoia. But this is a dangerous mindset. Each time that we simply shake our heads and petition for an extra security guard outside school buildings, we leave ourselves even more vulnerable to assault than we were before. It is in our idleness, our submissive tears and our casual resumption of life as though nothing has happened at all, that these assailants find validation.

We are all responsible for the creation of a society that frequently accepts school shootings as dreadful “flukes,” regardless of their actual and frightening frequency. The Parkland families are not the first to feel the agonizing shockwaves of a school shooting; the students of Stoneman Douglas High School are not the only ones overcome with harrowing fear at the mere thought of sitting in a classroom. 

It is in this absurdity and regularity that the youth of our nation have realized—with passionate potency and volume—the necessity for legislative reform. It cannot be simple for a mentally unstable person to purchase a firearm. The ambitious, curious, and driven students of our nation—the people who are tasked with continuing the legacy of America, of becoming the next doctors, lawyers, politicians, artists, and more importantly people—have a right to feel safe at school. The teachers who spend their days tirelessly striving to engage, inspire, and care for their students should not need to conjure enormous courage each day before going to work, wondering whether they might need to protect their pupils in addition to teach them. Parents should not anticipate their children’s return from school with uncertain anxiety.

On March 14, the one-month anniversary of this calamity, countless students will take agency in a united and powerful demand for change through a nation-wide school walk out. This walk-out will honor the memory of the Parkland teachers who valiantly sacrificed their lives in defense of their students and the children who were taken violently, inexcusably, and much too soon. Most of all, however, this walk-out is a plea for sanctuary, a desperate, fearful, and angry appeal for our leaders to enhance gun-control.

Students from my own high school plan to take part in this call to action, and my District administration’s response has been overwhelmingly supportive. Incredibly, however, this support is not ubiquitous.

Rather than submitting to fear—accepting the nervous sweat that creeps down ducked heads as students in every state frequently huddle under desks and practice hiding from shooters—we must enact change. It is time that our politicians take strides toward instituting increased security and comfort in public spaces, through increased gun-control, displaying an understanding of the infinite value of human lives.

And this starts with us. Although the necessity for reform might seem obvious, profound change—the type that is commemorated in textbooks and celebrated as monumental steps in the way of the future—will never be realized without agency. In the same fashion that we all allowed our country to reach this terrifying and dangerous time—where school shootings overwhelm the front pages of newspapers one day, only to be considered with regretful resignation the next—we must now fix this broken system. As strong-willed and conscious members of society, we are all obligated to articulate our beliefs, engage in community and nationwide debates, and fight for a safer future.

Carley Lerner is a Trinity first-year. Her column runs on alternate Thursdays.