It seems as if school shootings in America have become the new trend of 2018, as sad as it is. The bigger trend, however, may just be students educating themselves on laws that need to change to protect themselves. As a Canadian seeing the horror unfold from the other side of the border, my heart breaks as if I am there, in person, experiencing these tragedies with these students.
It has only been a little over one month since the Parkland tragedy on Feb 14 and way too many shootings, or gun-related incidents have popped up already. The most recent school shooting in southern Maryland involved a dangerous love triangle where one girl was injured, thanks to an armed security guard.
Jaelynn Willey, only 16 years -old, was taken off of life-support this past Thursday, surrounded by her family. Willey was one of two students shot by Austin Wyatt Rollins, 17. Her uncle described her as, ‘the most caring, thoughtful, sweet, beautiful, young lady I have ever met.”’
Willey was the victim of an attack against Rollins as a result of a prior relationship that the two had. That being said, what is sad about this whole story is the fact that Willey is an example of a promising human being who had her life cut short because of gun violence that is running rampant right now.
I still remember my own sweet-sixteen, and how much I looked forward to the life I had ahead of me, not giving a hoot about anything. It’s truly sad that now students have to go to school and worry about heavy issues lying on their hearts instead of the frivolous things we all worried about when we were 16; the parties, the secrets, the celeb gossip, normal teenage things that you enjoy before adulthood.
Writing this now, I have a pit in my throat because I am fearing that this will become a normality, a trend that won’t stop until gun-laws are changed and more action is taken. It’s great that states have begun to change their individual laws, but even in this case, only a handgun was stashed away and snuck into the school. If it weren’t for the armed security guard, more students surely could’ve gotten hurt.
In closing, I really want to iterate that we still haven’t come to terms with the Parkland shooting with this incident occurring only a month later. I’m hoping 2018 truly isn’t the year that school shootings in America become an on-going part of history.
