The Impact of Gun Violence

Sara Ruszczyk

Written On February 14th, 2018.

As a twenty-year-old college student, one would think I would feel comfortable on my campus. After all, I made the decision to attend this school. I can honestly say, however, I do not feel safe each time I am on campus. The reason for questioning my safety is not because I am in the city or surrounded by people of various races, religions, or ideas. Frankly, my discomfort has little to do with the campus culture or even the campus itself. My comfort had been stripped because of the amount of school shootings that have occurred in the United State; not only the shootings which dominate our televisions but the small, localized shootings. Only a few months into 2018 the tally of school shootings is larger than I can count on two hands.

School shootings are far from isolated incidents; these shootings are at the point of social crisis. I do not see the situation improving unless some type of action takes place. This action must be large and should involve nearly every member of this country. When I flip through television channels or scroll through social media, I never anticipate seeing a news story about a school shooting. I never think there will be another one because the one before was so horrific. It seems as if such a horror will be the last. I don’t feel the need to stop looking at the news because I never expect to hear that it happened again. I wish I could preserve this naïveté and innocence but things have changed. I no longer have the innocence to believe that this type of event won’t happen again. At this point, it seems another mass shooting is inevitable.

I wish I had the answers to why innocent children, teens, young adults, teachers, faculty and others have to lose their lives due to a rash decision one individual makes. The aftermath of the rash decision is unimaginable to the people involved, the families, the community, and even students, like myself, who have zero ties with any of the school shootings that have happened on United States soil. As a society, what are we supposed to do? Why have the tools already set in place failed? How are students supposed to become model citizens when many probably fear going to school and being killed? The questions that revolve around this topic are endless. However, the answers are minuscule. “Solutions” that have been made in the past have failed. As a student, I have walked around my campus and all of a sudden thought to myself “what would I do right now if someone started shooting?” I am a second year college student and never have I ever seen a gun on campus. Just because I do not see a gun, however, does not mean there is not one. Could I have escaped a shooting because the planner decided he/she could not go through with the vicious action? The questions I have on this matter are endless and scary to think about. The questions the victims and their loved ones have are probably unimaginable. A solution is needed, but who will find it?