It’s Valentine’s Day 2018—a day filled with red roses, red strawberries covered in chocolates, and red heart-shaped Valentine’s passed around in classrooms all day. It’s a day to celebrate the love you have for those closest to you. It’s not simply for significant other’s, but for mother’s, father’s, sister’s, brother’s and best friend’s.
Yet for many, Valentine’s Day 2018 was the last day some would see the ones closest to them. And now it’s a day tainted with red in the worst way possible.
In the midst of running around all day, my eyes hadn’t seen my Twitter timeline until late at night so I hadn’t read about what happened at Stoneman Douglas High School. Then, tweet after tweet after tweet after tweet appeared. (Tweets that may not have caught your eye.)
Images of students with their hands on each other’s shoulders being guided out of the school filled my timeline. Footage of people embracing one another with tears down their faces, and screenshots of text messages students sent to their parents—convinced they weren’t going to make it—were published.
The tweets continue into the next morning.
Students publish dedications to the friends and significant others they lost in the shooting. The shooter’s name is circulated more times than the names of the victims and not to mention, news stations address the shooter as an orphan to portray him while doing their best to avoid what he truly is. (Spoiler alert: a terrorist.)
And one of the worst parts about all of this? Students affected by other school shootings around the country are found consoling students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School by replying to their tweets. They provide coping mechanisms and share them with students across the country, telling them how they got through it.
There have been eighteen gunfire incidents since the commencement of 2018. How many more of these catastrophic events will it take to get this number to stop rising?
President Trump, when will enough finally be enough?
Within just a few mere days following the shooting, President Donald Trump’s tweets return to solely focusing on boosting his image. His tweets criticize the FBI and blamed them for being too wrapped up in Trump’s ties with Russia. Another tweet blames the Democrats for not passing gun legislation during the Obama Administration. Yet he fails to release that the problem lies within his own Administration.
Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign - there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 18, 2018
Just like they don’t want to solve the DACA problem, why didn’t the Democrats pass gun control legislation when they had both the House & Senate during the Obama Administration. Because they didn’t want to, and now they just talk!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2018
While students were attending funerals, President Trump was forty miles away golfing.
So, Mr. Trump, please put down the golf clubs and actually get to work. Because I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of seeing the number of school shootings rise each day and no one should ever have to live in fear inside the classroom.
