Only a few dozen miles away from my hometown, another school shooting happened. If this would have happened a few years ago, I would be in pure shock and panic. The sad thing is, I knew something like this was bound to hit home sooner rather than later. My social medias were filled with people talking about the shooting. Some said that they were �praying�. Some said that they were in shock something like this could happen. Some were angry that this happened. I understand that everyone deals with grief in their own way, but after something like this happens, there�s nothing that can be done but learn from it. How could we have prevented it? Install metal detectors? Put a ban on guns? Teach kids that violence is never the answer? While some of those things may help, it�s not what the real issue is. High school and even middle and grade school are full of stress and chaos nowadays. I once read an article that the average high school kid today has the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the early 1950�s. The problem isn�t that guns are bad, but that we don�t realize that stress and anxiety disorders are major problems hitting high schoolers in today�s world. We are surrounded constantly with bad news. If you turn on the TV on any given day, you hear of another shooting, hurricane, tornado, earthquake, car crash, etc. It reminds us that we are all in danger, so we stress out even more. Add all of that with being bullied for being different, and you have a recipe for disaster. A student brought a gun into school to end his torture. His brain told him that there was no way out but to take revenge. I�m not defending what this student did, and I certainly don�t know what was going through his mind. What I do know is how stressful high school is. High schoolers are just trying to figure out their way in life like everyone else, but they face more expectations than adults do. I found a way to let go of my stress, but I know many people who couldn�t find a way to let go of it. I also know that in small towns that there is a certain image that you�re supposed to fit. They tell you to go be whoever you want to be, but you have to act and look a certain way. It�s the same reason why I decided to start to writing. I wanted a place where I can fully express my opinion, and not have to worry about fitting society�s image. Now people in small town�s don�t necessarily realize that they are setting these expectations. It�s just the way that they are accustomed to. Many of the people in my hometown are perfectly kind people, but they don�t necessarily understand that some people see things differently. People let their peers define them by the one thing that makes them different, and that is when they take matters into their own hands. The individuals that let themselves be defined are the ones that never get a chance. They think that no one would understand, and maybe in the past, the system failed them. They begin to believe that the words people call them are true. Words like gay, fat, or liberal don�t define people; they are just descriptions. There is so much more to people than those words. Until we realize that more things like what happened today will continue to happen, and even then, these things may still continue to happen. It�s simply just how our world is. I wish and pray that the world wasn�t this way, but there is no truly effective way to stop this things. Whether it be the person who committed the crime or the reason the crime was committed, people don�t truly realize how their words and actions can affect someone.
I wish I had the answers to all of the world�s problems, but no one does. The only thing we can do is reflect on why this happened and how we will change ourselves to help prevent this to happen in the future.
