This has become routine. Last week, we had an 18-year-old casually walk into a grocery store and deliberately kill Black people; for Christ's sake, he had the n-word scratched into his assault rifle. Within days, numerous children were murdered in their school, a place where they deserve safety. Yet again, another young adult used a military-style weapon he legally bought and purchased 375 rounds of ammunition without a license. It should not be this easy for people as young as 18 to buy a firearm meant for combat. This tragedy comes nearly ten years after the Sandy Hook massacre and nothing has been done. In every social setting, I have been in since December 2012, I have been no more than 2 degrees away from a Sandy Hook victim; I'd like to repeat a victim, not a friend or family member of a victim, but the victim.
There is blame to go around on all sides. When Republicans unanimously refuse to support any sensible gun legislation, the Democrats become complacent and let the bill die. But why are Republicans not supporting any change to current gun laws? Groups such as the NRA pay them millions of dollars in campaign funding, and if these candidates support a bill that one of their biggest donors opposes, they lose the millions of dollars and probably their seat in Congress. It is not on the radar of special interest groups and lobbies like the NRA, who are actually in control of this country and the decisions of politicians, to care about the lives of children. If the children do not make any direct profit for these groups, then the latter does not care what happens during a shooting. The state has failed. We offer prayers and condolences instead of playing our cards differently and strategizing on how to make meaningful changes to our federal laws. Significant change is not putting the responsibility of survival onto the potential victims themselves by training them to barricade doors or hide in a side room in hopes that the shooter does not enter the class and massacre them like fish in a barrel. Meaningful change is voting the GQP out in November in the hopes that the influence of special interest groups that sacrifice the lives of young people for the right to bear arms dwindles. The interpretation of the Second Amendment is one of the most fraudulent interpretations in constitutional law; it was aimed at the state militia's responsibility to protect the state, not a free-for-all that lets any citizen purchase any weapon they want, as former Justice Warren Burger put it. A country where women will soon be forced to carry an unborn fetus to term no matter what and then have that fetus grow up to fear death every day as they enter their school is proof that we are going so far backward.
I'll end off with an anecdote describing the impact these shootings had on me, a person who needed to do active shooter drills for nearly ten years. I was in the parlor of the main building at my college, getting ready to review that week's issue of the school paper with the rest of the team. Another event was happening in the room across from us, and a balloon popped in the middle of our review. When I heard that pop, the first thing I thought of was, "well, this is how I die." People saying that they are speechless at what happened or that it is unimaginable that something like this can happen are delusional because it is the most imaginable thing in the United States. Suppose things stay the same, which they most likely will for a while, and more children will die. The only unknown factor is when it will happen, and all the children can do is worry that they might be next.