I have three younger brothers. They are 10, 9 and 3.

For the most part, they are new to the world. They are young and unafraid. They don’t understand the world around them, but they know they have to go to school everyday. They do not understand the change their world is going through, but they do know that sometimes myself and our mother watch the TV and become so engrossed in a news story that we hardly speak.

The older of the three boys are in second and fourth grade. They attend a public school in a very conservative area. They know about guns, and the uses they have for hunting. They know that a lot of our family hunts, and that is okay.

However, they had an early realization the horrors guns can cause.

I remember exactly where I was when Sandy Hook occurred. I remember I sat on my grandmother's couch for hours, watching in horror. I was 13 years old, and my brother was the same age as the children in the building.

Every time they talked about the kids, I saw his face. It made me sick. Eventually, my mom forbade me from watching the news, but it did haunt me.

I didn’t understand how innocent lives could become the victim of such a senseless and horrible act. I couldn't even fathom how children, not much older then babies, could be preyed upon. The days that followed, and the lack of change that followed, really bothered me.

Who was safe?

Eventually, my peers and I became almost desensitized to it. Teachers had explained to us what to do in the situation of a shooter. Everyone had their own plan.

Thankfully, those plans have never been used, and I pray they never will. But it was something that I as a high schooler had to understand was a possibility.

I never really thought about how shootings would affect my brothers and their school. After the Stoneman-Douglas shooting, our district, along with others across the nation, ran drills to prepare students and staff.

For myself, it was a humbling experience. While I did feel scared, I really did hope that this would help us in the feature.

My brothers and their school did a different exercise. Theirs was called Shepherd and Sheep. They were to follow their teacher in hope that they would be herded away from the incident. They weren’t exactly told that this drill was based on a shooter, but they understood.

That night, my brothers came home and asked my mom and I about it. The four of us sat around a table and talked about why that happened. We talked about what they should do, and how important it was to stay safe.

That was one of the saddest conversations of my life.

By the time I have my own children, hell, by the time my brother turns 11, I hope this is fixed. I hope and pray that my brothers never go through another drill. I hope that nobody loses a child, a sibling, a friend in this senseless targeting of schools. I am a firm believer in the importance of education, and the value it has. If our children aren’t safe in school, where will they be?