656: the number of mass shootings in America in 2023, according to the Gun Violence Archive. 4,512: the amount of adolescent deaths from gun violence in 2023. 4,512 sons, daughters, siblings, friends and above all, people. This number may seem surprising to you. However, according to President-elect Donald Trump’s reference to an Iowa school shooting at a campaign rally in January of 2024, “We have to get over it.”
Teens all over America are begging for change. We cannot continue to sit in math class imagining the school supplies that surround us as weapons. The immense anxiety induced by frequent overhead announcements is not acceptable.
Trump’s plan for change? More guns. According to Agenda 47, a collection of Trump’s policy plans that he wants to implement when he is in office, he supports districts that allow teachers to carry weapons at school. Growing up, we are taught in school that the government is here to protect and help their citizens, but these types of responses make it hard for many to believe that. This presents an ultimatum: Protect the lives of American children or prioritize guns.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) outlines the reasoning behind fewer restrictions on guns in America. They claim that since criminals by definition do not follow the law, they will find ways to get around stricter gun laws anyways. While this is technically true, this is not a logical argument. It is like saying speed limits are ineffective because people will speed anyway. Further, they argue that the more good people who have guns, the less crime there will be. But how can we control which people have guns with the current relaxed background checks?
After a 1996 school shooting in the United Kingdom that killed 16 children and one teacher, privately owned handguns were banned within one year. America’s response to school shootings, on the other hand? Tweets and speeches of “thoughts and prayers” and “never again.”
From 3,000 Marjory Stoneman Douglas students walking out of their classrooms in unified disapproval, to March for Our Lives (a student-led gun control organization) protesting outside of the White House, teenagers have spent years asking the government to stop being dormant.
It is vital that more people join in with these efforts. Women did not get the right to vote and segregation did not end by people sitting quietly and hoping that the government would change on its own. The civil rights movement was mostly teenagers and young adults participating in different protests to get the government to change their ways; we must do the same. Attending protests, getting involved in our community and encouraging our state representatives to take action on gun problems are a few ways we can create a change.
More thorough background checks, a ban on assault weapons and increased attention on preventing illegal gun purchases would decrease the amount of mass shootings in America. However, with a Trump presidency, a conservative Supreme Court and a Republican majority in both the House and the Senate, these changes are unlikely. It is of the utmost importance that America’s teenagers are not discouraged by the lack of care for their lives, but instead inspired to take the action desperately needed.
