As a child, I feared going to school, even though at the time, shootings were not as common. It was more of a fear of the fire alarm, and if my grandparents came to eat lunch with me while they were in town, I refused to let them leave. Overall, after considering everything about my relatively normal childhood, as a young adult, I've resulted to the fact that I feared school from a rather young age.
Today, I'm a twenty-year-old college student, in a small town in VA, and I experience immense fear about the mere possibility of a shooting taking place.
On February 29th, during a math exam, the fire alarm went off and from the hall, we heard someone yelling "go go go!" By this point, we're all pretty familiar with the recent tragedy that occurred in Florida just a few weeks ago - it started with a fire alarm. We evacuated, everything was fine.
But as we stood outside waiting for the all clear, one of my peers shared something I hadn't thought about until that moment. For a split second, she thought there was a shooter due to the yelling in the hall when the alarm went off.
Why has our world come to this?
Following the tragedy in Florida, I had multiple panic attacks the more I learned about the incident. I live the majority of my life planned ahead; if I don't have a schedule and know when, where and what I'll be doing, I get insane anxiety.
Something that struck me about the FL shooting more than previous shootings was how close I am in age with many of the people affected. Just a year and a half, two years ago, I was in their shoes. They are all on Twitter, Instagram, or whatever social media of your choice. I heard their words. Their worries. Their stories. Their struggles.
And that is an eye-opener to just how real this is. That sounds funny to say, but we got to know so much from student's perspectives on this shooting that I had not recognized or seen from previous tragedies. It made it so much more real.
We shouldn't be faced with wondering what will happen next on a daily basis.
Now I know what you may be thinking, the chances of it happening to you are very slim. But that is what every student, teacher, and parent thinks until it does happen, and their world is torn apart.
And I don't have the answer; quite frankly I don't think anybody has the perfect answer. Are guns too easily accessible? Yes. By placing new restrictive laws, will the problem be fixed? No. Are stricter background checks necessary? Yes. Everyone is going to have a different opinion on how to address the issue we're facing, and there never will be an answer to please all. But something has to be done.