Don’t Let the Conversation Die

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When I was a student at The University of Texas at Austin, I experienced a school shooting. I was in the middle of an early morning French exam when a series of loud sounds were heard outside of the classroom. Given the time of day and the unlikelihood of a serious situation, my assumption was that someone had blown a tire on the street just in front of the building. But within a matter of seconds, everyone’s cell phones began beeping with an emergency alert from the university, and my professor muttered the words that I will never forget, “There have been shots fired on campus. Everyone get under your desk now!”

For the next several hours, my peers and I remained huddled in the back of the room, shaking and crying. We sent text messages and made phone calls to our loved ones until our phones ran out of battery. Our timeline of what was unfolding mere feet from us came from Twitter and CNN updates. It was a morning of confusion, emotion, and the fastest heartbeat I’ve ever felt. Even after the direct threat of the shooter had been defused, we were forbidden from leaving the classroom as the authorities ensured that reports of a second shooter were in fact, false and that no other threats remained in the vicinity. Finally, a SWAT team arrived and escorted everyone from the building. Once outside, the scene was surreal. Military tanks, machine gun wielding officers, and the Texas Rangers on horseback patrolled the campus. Caution tape, ambulances, and more blue and red lights than I had ever seen provided a depiction that should belong only in Hollywood films.

As far as school shootings go, we were lucky. Only the shooter himself was killed when he committed suicide on the top floor of the school’s main library. All of the shots that he fired in the direction of other people missed their target and no serious injuries were reported from victims. But still, that sentence guts me to say: “As far as school shootings go, we were lucky because only one person died.” To consider oneself lucky to have experienced a school shooting with a minimal fatality count is appalling because there should not be a fatality count. There should not be school shootings. But how do we get to a place where school shootings are not a familiar news headline?

The thing that I remember most about the situation I experienced was how much fervor and passionate dialogue there was in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. The student body bonded together and there were productive solutions discussed in both academic and social circles. I remember the energy that was poured into conducting a solution-focused conversation. But I also remember how that conversation faded, how it dissipated over weeks and months until no one spoke of it save for the occasional anecdote.

In a culture in which we are inundated with more information than any generation before us was exposed, news headlines are rapidly changing. Today’s news story will soon lend way to the next catastrophic event, and then the next event after that. Sometimes it is a matter of hours, days, or weeks before the next headline captivates the nation, but it always happens. Our attention is ultimately grabbed by the next event, which is why I am making an earnest plea now, in the wake of the recent Parkland school shooting, to find a way to keep the conversation about gun safety going even after the next headline is published.

Many people have said that this time feels different, that the Parkland school shooting has ignited a fury that truly wants to see definitive change. We are seeing high school students, and their peers across the nation, taking a stand to demand action from the adults assigned to protect them. Their force is strong, passionate, and unwavering. And we, the public, need to do just that: protect our children. Protect them by continuing the conversation and keeping the discussion alive until change has been implemented.

Talk to your friends, write your Congressperson, advocate on social media. However, you choose to participate in the conversation, keep speaking. The moment we stop discussing the dangers of gun violence is when the hope of a solution fades. Whatever you do, however you maintain it, don’t let the conversation die.

To honor the victims, to stand in solidarity with the survivors, and to protect the future, it is vital that we band together to make noise until a tangible solution is actualized. In a world where it is so easy to become consumed by the next Instagram post, the next tweet, the next Facebook update, make a conscious effort to keep the need for gun reform pinned at the top.

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More related, here on GMP:

5 Ways to Think About America’s Gun Problem—From an Avid Gun Owner

“I am a life-long shooting enthusiast. I can do the two-pistol thing better than almost anyone I know. But this is not about my guns. Schoolchildren are dying needlessly. We must do something about this gun problem.”

7 Things I Want to Say About Something I Don’t Have the Words for #Parkland

To the children of #Parkland who are banding together to create change: I see you. I stand with you.

Ten Ways Schools, Parents, and Communities Can Prevent School Shootings Now

While politicians argue endlessly over gun control, here are 10 practical ways the rest of us can work to prevent school shootings.

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More by Amanda Vining, here on GMP:

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