Dec. 14, 2012, 9:32 a.m., “Mr. Locke is in the building, this is not a drill,” echoed from the loud speaker of my middle school. Two and a half hours of bewilderment later, the lockdown is over, and nobody in the building is hurt. Four miles away, a different story unfolded; 20 children and six adults were fatally wounded by the barrel of Adam Lanza’s AR-15 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Since then, Connecticut legislators and activists have enacted combative gun laws, including a ban on semi-automatic weapons and more vigorous background checks. After the tragedy, we said “never again.” Since then, there have been over 1,700 mass shootings in the U.S.
None were more impactful than on Feb. 14, 2018, when Nikolas Cruz killed 13 students and four adults in Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School in Parkland, Florida. The aftermath of the shooting lead to a continuing fight on the regulation of firearms in America by the Parkland survivors.
Since the tragic Valentine’s Day day attack in 2018, the survivors of Parkland have led numerous protests, a national school walkout and the one of the largest marches in Washington D.C. since Dr. King’s “March on Washington,” dubbed “March for Our Lives,” combatting the NRA, gun violence and supporting gun safety. The students of Parkland for sure got the attention from the nation, as 123 gun laws have been enacted by various local and state governments regulating safe firearm laws, but zero legislation was passed in Congress to combat gun violence.
Last week, “The Miami Herald” made it evident that there is still much work to do to ensure the safety of the children of America. The newspaper published on two pages of the paper the names of all the children killed by firearms in one year since the Nikolas Cruz opened fire in MSD. They listed 1,157 names; 1,157 reasons that gun control needs to be taken seriously in a national level.
The addition of more assertive background checks is one of the top priorities for those combating gun violence. Their campaign promoting background checks is to prevent people like Adam Lanza and Nikolas Cruz from obtaining weapons. In many states, it is as easy to buy a gun as it is to buy a pack of gum.
The other main priority is the prohibition of assault weapons. David Wheeler, father of six-year-old victim Benjamin Wheeler, on Dec. 14 beseeched to Congress, “The liberty of any person to own a military-style weapon and high-capacity magazine and keep them in their home, is second to the right, of my son, to his life.”
Wheeler’s tearful testimony in 2013 pleaded to the American people to get their priorities straight about the use of semi-automatic weapons in our country.
So many people are affected from gun violence every day, it is up to our nation’s leaders to promote safer legislation to limit any further implications, and to protect us as citizens.
By Matthew Villanueva, Contributing Writer
villanjv18@bonaventure.edu
