I started this story on January 29th in response to the shooting in Marshall County High School that took place on January 23rd.  Within the three weeks of  starting this article, there was a horrendous school shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School  in Florida where 17 innocent members of the student body and staff were killed.  Just last week at our own school. a rumor of a potential threat spread through social media and terrorized our whole community.  So far within 2018 there has been at least one shooting a week in the United States. This is a problem that doesn’t seem to have an end and feels like no one is trying to stop future occurrences.

Here is a graphic by the New York Times showing every school shooting after the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012.

Civilians are calling for action to  keep their children and themselves safe. Words like “thoughts and prayers” and “support” are thrown around, but they inevitably do nothing to help anyone in these situations. There are plenty of real solutions to these problems that are not being taken into consideration. Here are a few of my thoughts:

• A full-time professional therapist to talk to students at each school. Student counselors have a large caseload and must  focus on the academic aspect’s of a student’s life. A licensed therapist will be able to help students overcome problems and issues they deal with everyday. The school system is supposed to make us mentally stronger, but when that stress turns into emotional problems and physical threats, the helpful and peaceful solution is to correctly talk to the students and other people.
• I’d like to preface this next statement with my own belief: I love privacy and not being subjected to a search. However, I don’t have anything to hide. I come to school with my books and papers and nothing else. I am willing to give up some of that privacy, in order to feel safer. I hate the totalitarian feeling that something like searches would give me, but I have also dealt with the fear of violence in my school and I’d much prefer the feeling of  being safe to being afraid.
• Speaking of taking away freedoms, let’s talk gun control. I realize that this is a political statement, but I stand by it. Weapons like those used at Stoneman Douglas were not made for hunting or sport. They were made for killing people. A society that would promote peace over violence should not give their own people access to such things. You may disagree with me, but we should not be able to purchase automatic weapons.

There have been record mass shootings all over the U.S. in the past few years and our laws and policies have failed to address the causes of the violence. This generation is tired of hearing useless defenses and excuses. We demand action.