I’ll cut to the chase. I should not be writing this article.
According to the “Arkansas Democrat-Gazette”, by Sept. 18, eight students in Arkansas had already been charged for threatening violence toward their schools. In fact, Principal Nancy Rousseau announced that a member of our own student body was escorted off campus by the police following a threat. This was within a two week span.
According to the K-12 School Shooting Database, there have been 2,257 school shootings since 1999, when the Columbine shooting occurred. There have been 50 school shootings in the United States since Jan. 2024; 37 of them being at K-12 schools.
At what point will we as a country decide that we’ve had enough?
I have grown up around guns. All of the adults in my family own a gun and I agree that we need them for recreational hunting and protection, but there is no reason that assault rifles or other weapons that are specifically designed to harm humans should be in the hands of an everyday citizen. Better yet, there is no reason for firearms to be so easily accessible, period, especially to people who are not legally allowed to own one.
As many students have seen on social media or heard over the announcements, threats have been circulating the internet at an alarming rate. Principal Rousseau had to tell us that we had nothing to worry about every single day one week. But is that true?
Although Rousseau’s constant and reliable communication with parents is comforting, it doesn’t change the fact that everyone should be worrying about this. Students shouldn’t have to stay up all night talking to their friends about whether or not they’re going to school because they’re scared they won’t come home alive. Parents shouldn’t have to ask their child if they’re comfortable even going to school. For some reason, however, this issue is constantly just swept under the rug.
In fact, a potential law change has been presented to Arkansas’ 2025 legislative session. This change would allow firearms to be brought onto school campuses and school bus stops. Additionally, it would downgrade certain concealed-carry violations to the same punishment standard as traffic violations as opposed to the current charge of felonies or misdemeanors.
Just to introduce the icing on the cake, a recommendation was also approved that would allow a study to be done to create a path to restore firearm ownership to people who had been involuntarily admitted to psychiatric hospitals.
Arkansas is already ranked 50th in the strength of our gun laws, but our legislation insists on continuously disregarding the violence in our communities by repeatedly easing up on gun laws.
Of course shootings can happen anywhere, but that shouldn’t diminish the gravity of the issue at hand: gun violence in places of education, places where children should be going to learn and grow, not fear for their lives.
How is it that we have to keep our heads on a swivel but the biggest concern for the district is whether or not we have a year round school year or whether or not we get our phones taken every day? Why would we want to go to school year round if we’re scared of going to school as it is? Why should our phones get taken away if they are necessary for communication with our parents in case something does happen?
There are so many unanswered questions surrounding this topic and the answers lie somewhere even beyond our district: our political leaders.
The people who are making the laws and restrictions on guns never had to experience school shootings. They never had to huddle in the corner during their B3 class to practice in case an intruder enters the building. It just simply wasn’t a problem when they were in school, so therefore there is a disconnect and lack of understanding of just how terrifying and important it really is.
Additionally, as a country and as a state we are consistently electing people who care more about how much money is going into their campaign than how safe students are. They would rather ignore the innocent lives that are being taken for some extra cash than work to ensure that our schools aren’t a shooting range. Our lives are not worth their money, and this has been made blatantly obvious. How many children have to be exposed to gun violence before this issue gets the attention that it deserves? Apparently 338,000 children who were students in the 2,257 school shootings since 1999, aren’t enough.
There are so many solutions to gun violence but it all comes down to one common denominator: who we elect as our officials. We need to end the violence and threats and our voices need to be heard, but this can only happen if we ourselves elect people who are willing to listen.
