Common sense gun reform is the topic we need to talk about right now. We cannot let this issue be pushed aide because of our stagnant elected officials any longer. This also shouldn’t be a political debate or something that we try to fix with extremes.
Mass Shootings are something we have grown much too comfortable with. As a Millennial, I can admit that school shootings are things my generation have always been aware of. I personally remember all the lockdown drills - moments where my classmates and I would all be huddled in the corner of the classroom. Lights off, doors locked, blinds closed. We did this routinely, and we all knew they were drills. So how did that affect my generation?
It made us ignorant to the reality of gun violence. It caused an entire generation of kids to become desensitized to mass shootings. We lived our teen years seeing mass shootings at home and being bombarded with news of the Middle East all at the same time.
Our youngest generation, Gen Z, has never seen the USA at peace, uninvolved in a war. They are too young to remember Columbine or 9/11. Our youngest generation has also been raised on technology, and are constantly talking to each other. These same kids are raised in a world where mental health doesn’t matter, and suffer from depression and anxiety on a wide scale.
I say this because our issue with mass shootings and gun violence really rests in the hands of these individuals - our kids. Our children are our future and we are allowing them to be murdered in school. Unwilling to make any changes of any size to mitigate these issues. We now have the chance to make change for our future - to allow our children to see adulthood, so they can make the world a better place than we did.
Does this include banning AR-15s? Required background checks? Or will the game-plan still only include thoughts and prayers?
If we choose to do nothing, what are we to say in 20 years when our kids ask us “why didn’t the laws change after so many children died?” I’m not sure I’ll have an answer. Will you?