Nine years old. That was the age of the three children that were killed in the Tennessee Elementary school shooting last week. It seems America can’t escape this tragedy, but why is this? As it stands, firearms are the leading cause of death for children in America, so where are our lawmakers and leaders who can do something about this? Why do we continue to focus on other irrelevant issues when American Children are dying every day?
A study by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 71 % of Americans want stricter gun control. What our politicians should be taking away from this is that America wants laws that prevent guns from getting into the wrong hands, and yet, nothing is being done. After every major shooting, we get tweets or statements from people like Ted Cruz, Steve Scalise, and Marjorie Taylor Greene giving out “thoughts and prayers”, who all then turn around and continue to block bills attempting to create gun control. Let’s see if those thoughts and prayers helped the 4,357 children that died of gun violence in 2020. Those thoughts and prayers certainly didn’t help African American children and teenagers, who have had the highest gun death rate for decades. One American child dies every 2 hours and 36 minutes from gun violence, but at least we get a reassuring 5-word tweet from our leaders every time it happens. We continue to elect politicians that don’t stand for the greater good of our country, but this problem can be blamed on both sides. American politics have evolved into a screaming match, and the loudest scream manages to come out on top. But in this screaming match, politicians have drowned out the cries for help from their very own constituents. We saw it at the Tennesse Capitol Building directly after the Elementary school shooting, where Republican legislators attempted to expel three Democrats from the House for campaigning for stricter gun control, drowning out the literal cries of help from children just to gain a point for themselves.
So how do we actually make a difference? We start by voting. A lot of us at PHS already can or are extremely close to being able to vote. The only way we can ever make a difference is by putting the right people in charge, people that care about issues that matter to us, like protecting children’s lives. By voting, we bring in actual solutions, like banning assault weapons and running deeper background checks. The other is to just get involved somehow; our government only functions when we take action and participate in it. The final was is to continue to talk about these issues. Things like school shootings and other controversial topics might be hard to converse about, but they’re unfortunately not just going to disappear. By continuing to talk about them, we’re letting our leaders know what’s important to us and bringing awareness to others.

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