When Are Things Going to Change?!

Alyssa Alhadeff, 14

Scott Beigel, 35

Martin Duque Anguiano, 14

Nicholas Dworet, 17

Aaron Feis, 37

Jaime Guttenberg, 14

Chris Hixon, 49

Luke Hoyer, 15

Cara Loughran, 14

Gina Montalto, 14

Joaquin Oliver, 17

Alaina Petty, 14

Meadow Pollack, 18

Helena Ramsay, 17

Alex Schachter, 14

Carmen Schentrup, 16

Peter Wang, 15

These are the victims of the MSD school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

17 victims and countless more fighting for their lives.

Why?

That is the only question that I have after yet another school shooting this year. I don't understand. I am sick and tired of having to send out my generalized "thoughts and prayers" out to the victims' families because that's never enough! It never will be, and I am tired of having to read about innocent people losing their lives because people think that their guns are more important than children's lives. Not only that but because these, dare I say it, monsters think that taking these victims lives is what? Going to fix their pain?

Nicholas Cruz is the only one to blame for this tragedy. It's not the gun's fault that it ended up in the wrong hands. Cruz should have never been able to buy a gun. He had a history of mental illness, the signs were there, and no one saw them. The only way to stop this from happening again and again like it seems, we need to become stricter with who gets to be able to purchase a firearm.

Now before I get too far into this piece, I want to point out that I own a gun myself and yes, it does make me feel safe at some points when things go bump on the night but honestly... if giving up the right to openly carry it around with me meant kids felt safe going to school... I would do it in a heartbeat. This entire thing incident could have been avoided if gun laws were stricter. Now I am not saying that no one should be able to buy or carry a gun, but there should be a lot longer of a screening process for someone who wants to purchase a gun.

You should have to go through an entire screening process looking for things like mental illness and a criminal record. Half of the mass murders involving guns wouldn't have happened if this were the case. I don't understand why people are so against a more vetted screening process. Do these people think that they wouldn't pass? Maybe that would be a good thing. If you aren't mentally fit and capable you shouldn't have a weapon that has the capability of ending someone else's life. Plain and simple.

I remember when I was in high school at least one time per year our school was threatened. The time I remember the most was in my junior year right after the Sandy Hook shooting and someone wrote "Bang Bang at 3" on the bathroom wall and we went into instant lockdown. None of us knew at the time what was going on and I remember looking to my band director and saw tears in her eyes and I knew at that moment that something serious was going on. Even though there wasn't an active shooter on our campus, I will never forget that day. It is embedded into my subconscious.

No student should ever be afraid to go to school and learn because they are scared of being shot down.

Something needs to change. Teenagers should not be having to deal with PTSD from gun violence like some of our veterans are. That is not something that our teenagers should be having to deal with this early on in their life. They will carry this event around with them for the rest of their lives, it will haunt their nightmares. They will hear the pops of the gun and the screams at night when they are trying to sleep. They did nothing to deserve this fate. Why are we making them suffer through this when there was something that could have been done about this yesterday?

What is it going to take for this government to see that something is seriously wrong with our system? How many innocent people have to lose their lives for us to finally change something? When is Congress going to realize that high school students lives are more important than the second amendment?

Thoughts & Prayers... No, that's worth nothing anymore, what we need is Policy and Change.