How many of you have been following the news lately? Have you seen the shootings in El Paso, Texas, Dayton, Ohio? Do you remember the shooting in Florida at the Stoneman Douglas High School? Did you know that a mother prevented her son from shooting up his own school here in Washington State? Ever since the Sandy Hook shooting in Colorado, the number of shootings in the country has been increasing. People cannot go to the mall or even go to a park because a shooting might happen. Kids cannot even go to school feeling safe in their environment. The end of 2019 has not come to an end yet, but so far, a total of 293 shootings have occurred. Now let us ask ourselves these questions, why is this happening and how can we stop this?

Junior Emma Denier said that for us to lower the number of school shootings we need to have stricter gun laws to ensure that “There are background checks and mental health checks of the people trying to get the guns.” Sophomore Lucy Bentsen also said that with gun reforms and stricter background checks, we could make this problem stop. Bentsen also proposed that stores such as Walmart stop selling ammunition. As we all know our school has an alarm to tell students and staff that we are in lockdown. But are we communicating enough to each other about these things going on or are we just acknowledging and putting them in the back of our minds?  Senior Gaje Gunter said that the climate is way more intensifying and more acknowledging.

People acknowledge the problem and tell a trusted adult. What about the kids that need help? Schools have been more careful and offer the necessary mental support. What about social media such as Tik Tok? On Sept. 16 an IHS student made a threatening Tik Tok and was arrested. What if it was not a joke and nobody reported it to school officials? Should schools monitor students’ social media accounts?  Deiner says that if the school has any reason to monitor student’s social media to keep students and staff safe, they should. We have all heard this since our early years of elementary school: stop bullying! Everyone has been taught to be nice to each other. Why do people feel the need to bully? To make themselves feel better from the negativity in their lives? Or because they really want to be the cool kids? Students want to get their education to have better lives, but these students cannot get their education unless they stop bullying.

This is a time to come together and to recognize what we are doing wrong as a country. We stick together but we are becoming more and more farther apart from each other. Every time students talk with adults about these topics, adults tell us we are too young. We are too young to see our classmates die. We are too young to see death at the tips of our fingers. But what are adults going to do about this? The solution some adults think will fix this is if we give our teachers more guns according to Edweek.com. The Sandy Hook Promise foundation made a back-to-school video telling students and parents that they need to be prepared for a shooting that might happen at their school. Why do we need to worry about this stuff? Why is it so complicated to get a gun lock it up and not sell to underqualified people? Again, I say, America, we have a problem.