Reminder: School Shootings Should Not Be Normalized

This past week, there was another (yes—another) school shooting.

Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California was the site of the nation’s most recent school shooting. According to an article from CNN:

The gunman randomly shot students after taking out a .45-caliber pistol from his backpack at the quad area in Saugus High School in Santa Clarita. After targeting his schoolmates Thursday, he used the last bullet to shoot himself the same day he turned 16. He died at the hospital Friday, and his motive remains a mystery, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said.

Two teenagers—Grace Anne Muehlberger and Dominic Blackwell—were killed by the shooter while three other teenagers were injured by gunshot wounds. The motive of the shooter has not yet been identified.

It pains me to see, however, that this tragedy did not make huge headlines. In fact, I personally didn’t know of the shooting until I discovered it on Twitter by myself. But this is now the reality of the situation. Perhaps this school shooting, in the midst of all the other ones that have occurred in this country, did not receive the same kind of attention simply because the body count was lower than the ones we’re “used to.” And as difficult as it is for my fingers to type this, that is the truth. Today, the news is fluttered with issues about Trump’s impeachment, Hong Kong protests, and whatever else is pressing in society. And while all of these things are important, I don’t think that we realize how problematic (an understatement) the plague of gun violence is.

To grow up in this generation is to have “lock-down drills” become constant “what-if” scenarios between you and your classmates. Even I remember saying to my friends: “this would be a great place to hide if….” It’s frightening to think about these exchanges, but we would oftentimes laugh off our fear as if it wasn’t warranted. But that’s just the thing. School shootings are becoming normalized. In fact, they already are. The fact that the Saugus High School shooting didn’t make major headlines is evidence of this. And the scariest part is that nothing is getting done about it.

One of the biggest lobbying groups, the National Rifle Association (NRA), is constantly fighting against bills on gun reform. Even bi-partisan efforts fail to be discussed in the majority red Senate. An article from CNBC illustrates how absurd this all is:

The National Rifle Association spent $1.6 million during the first half of the year lobbying members of the House and Senate against laws that would enact stricter background checks for people looking to buy guns, according to disclosure reports.

One of the dozens of bills targeted by the NRA is H.R. 8, a bipartisan proposal that passed the Democratic-controlled House in February and has yet to be taken up by the Republican-controlled Senate. The second-quarter filing shows that NRA lobbyists continued their efforts against the bill after its passage in the House.

What all this means is that no matter how much we march, protest, rally, or post on our IG stories—nothing will get done unless we look at Congress. And even with the Democratic House, nothing will get done with Mitch McConnell and his followers in the Senate. What this issue underscores is the idea that none of our efforts—none of our struggles will be heard unless we take to the voting booth. That is the key ladies and gentlemen. Let us reform a society where school shootings are not the norm. Where the best hiding spots will not be a part of my future children’s curriculum. Where we don’t live in a state of constant fear. We owe it not only to ourselves but to the generations beyond.