If you’ve been living under a rock the past couple of weeks, which it seems like many of us have been, then you’ve probably missed the senseless violence going on that’s broadcasted by the media. Look, I get it –there’s always senseless violence going on in the news. However, when it includes acts that could have very well been prevented then this is a conversation that needs to be had.

With the skyrocketing shootings going on in schools, what are we to do? And along with this, when did we become so desensitized to it? Because obviously, we totally have become this way.

So students and teachers are being shot, injured, and slaughtered in an institution of learning. And we’re just out here batting lashes at it. Not cute, guys.

I’ve written on the topic before and dropped the comment that students should never feel unsafe or uncomfortable in a learning environment. There should be some sort of comfortable assumption that when you get dropped off at school that you’ll be picked up in one piece. Especially at the elementary levels of school.

We live in a world that seems more and more terrible every day, and violence isn’t entirely a new issue. However, judging by the looks of the news, we are seeing an exceptional spike in shootings and murders on the grounds of schools. And it has gotten to the point that it is so normalized that we have fallen under silence on the issue.

Which is absolutely bizarre to me.

What is the fix for the issue? There’s a ton of solutions. They’ve been said before and they’ll be said again. You cannot keep blowing steam on an issue and expect a fix without placing any action to your words. That’s negligent. We are dealing with, now, a deep seeded societal issue, and we do not get to just ignore it.

We have got to stop making excuses and start making goals. If our government isn’t stepping into it, then it’s going to have to be us. Lacksidasical leadership in the community and politically has failed us on every spectrum up to this moment. Apologies and prayers are nothing without the action put into them to prevent a negative cycle of events from transpiring again. And now that lives are on the line, I think that now is a better time than ever to decide to stand up and speak out.

Because as a student, with friends who are students, and family members who are students, I would like to hope and believe that we have a team behind us helping us fix the problems society has posed to us instead of sleeping on the job. In our society, it is our job to fix the issues that we’ve created. This stuff doesn’t just come out of thin air, so let’s stop acting like it and assume responsibilities for the monsters we’ve created.