I came across a story recently, and I wanted to share it and my reactions to it with as many people as I could. It is a true story, a testimony of sorts, from a little girl named Ava Olsen. She survived the Townville Elementary School shooting in 2016, in which a fourteen-year-old named Jesse Osborne shot her teacher in the shoulder, her classmate in the foot, and her best friend in the head. Osborne would have continued shooting had his gun not jammed.

Ava has been diagnosed with PTSD and is now homeschooled as a result. One day, Ava decided to write a letter to President Trump. In this letter, she asked our president “Are you going to keep kids safe?” and begged him to “Please keep kids safe from guns.”

Amazingly, Trump responded, offering Ava his condolences, saying he and Mrs. Trump were sorry for her loss. The president also stated that “It is my goal as President to make sure that children in America grow up in safe environments… I will continue to focus on protecting Americans…”.

I read Trump’s response, and I am angry. I feel this anger in the bottom of my stomach and leaking from behind my eyes. That letter was sent two years ago. There have been twelve fatal school shootings since, four of them in 2018 alone. The number of school shootings per year has not gone down, but rather they have risen in number. Since Columbine, there have been over 150,000 students attending at least 170 primary/ elementary school exposed to gun violence. Nothing has been done to “keep kids safe from guns.”

The only action that I have seen making any difference in regard to gun control has come from kids not much younger than me (I am nineteen). The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High Schoolers and other students surrounding Parkland, FL have done more in the past two months in taking action against gun violence than our government has done in the past nineteen years.

They led marches and protests all over not only their own state of Florida but also all across the United States of America. They have raised awareness, money, and support for gun control laws and even encouraged Florida lawmakers to raise the age at which one can purchase a gun from eighteen to twenty-one.

These teenagers are doing more to proactively protect themselves and their fellow students than our government is, and THAT is unacceptable.

I expect more from the people in charge of my country. I expect them to say sorry and mean it, and I expect them to keep the promises they make. I do not feel that this is an absurd expectation because they are the same expectations that were placed on me and my younger brother when we were in the third grade and in kindergarten, respectively.

I vividly remember our mom and dad talking to us on the drive to school one day after a pattern emerged of the two of us getting into fights with each other and with other students on the school playground. My parents were careful to explain to me and my brother the real meaning of an apology. They told us, in terms that our nine-year-old and six-year-old selves could easily understand.

Allow me to repeat: At ages nine and six, my brother and I were taught and understood the meaning of a real apology.

I now teach the same lesson to the four-year-olds that I coach in summer soccer camps, and I taught it to my sunday school class two years ago when they were in the first grade. I have, on multiple occasions, heard my brother teaching our younger cousins or his friends the same things he was taught before he even understood basic addition.

It is an easy lesson to learn.

I will now teach you the same formula we learned almost eleven years ago. Take it to heart.

1. Acknowledge your mistake. Admit that you did wrong.
2. Make it clear that you regret hurting the victim. If you don’t actually feel bad for what you did, then you aren’t ready to give the apology, and it will mean nothing.
3. Tell the victim that you will do your best to avoid hurting them in the future, and you will especially not allow yourself to do the same thing to them again.
4. Ask what you can do to make it up to them. You may want their forgiveness, but that starts with both of you being on equal footing with each other. Don’t be so selfish as to make that harder for them.
5. This is the most important step: Follow through with your promises. Don’t forget what you did to them, how you hurt them, and how you plan on making it up to them. Don’t be afraid of going above and beyond what they asked of you.

These are the demands I make of myself and those around me. This is the formula I expect my leaders to follow.