In the first months of 2023 alone, there have been 146 school shootings. It needs to stop. Students and staff should not go to school in the morning praying they make it home alive.
In Nashville, Tennessee, a 28 year old woman fired 152 rounds, killing three students and three adults, because she did not like what was being taught at the Christian academy she once attended.
In Louisville, Kentucky, 8 people were injured and five left dead including two police officers, in the shooting at Old National Bank.
In 2022, there were 670 school shootings and more than 44,000 people were killed due to gun violence. This makes 670 times a gun was in the hands of someone who used it to take the lives of innocent people in their school in the span of 12 months. In addition 26,328 people took their own lives with a gun when they should not have had access to a gun at all. That’s 26,328 times someone took their life with a gun and 44,000 times a gun was in the wrong hands.
In Indiana, all that needs to be done to purchase a firearm is pass a background check and have a driver’s license, or a state ID with a photo, showing a current address. This background check does not make sure that a person who buys a gun knows how to use it, or is even mentally stable enough to have access to the firearm.
People who are not mentally stable should not be in possession of a firearm. School should not be a place where students and staff fear for their lives as they walk into school every morning. Anyone over the age of 21 can carry a gun in public. In Vermont the minimum age to carry a gun is 16, and that is terrifying.
There needs to be a change or else people will keep dying. Something needs to be done, and it needs to happen fast; guns are not meant for people who are not trained, educated and certainly not for people who are using them to take the lives of innocent people.
Many students at Franklin Central High School participated in a walk-out on April 20, 2023. Students walked the halls and around the school using their voices to help bring justice to fellow classmates and people in general who have lost their lives to gun violence.
People need to stop losing their lives due to others being irresponsible. It is not fair to the thousands of people who are dying or their families, who have to say goodbye because someone else decided that they did not want to be slightly inconvenienced with a few more checks before purchasing a gun. People are dead because of this, and it is not right.