I survived a school shooting. My kids shouldn't have to face the same danger | Ashley J... - 1 views
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Surviving a school shooting was an initiation of evil. The world didn’t look or feel the same afterward
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Despite 12 years and countless other mass shooting incidents across the country, not much has been done by our federal legislators to make anyone safer from gun violence anywhere – let alone at school.
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I clutched my eight-month-old son to my chest as the precious faces of young children murdered at school cycled across my television screen on the evening news.
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Little kids were new casualties in our country’s ongoing struggle to define itself. Its endless argument over guns appeared to be a symptom of a national identity crisis between political polar opposites – two parties so ideologically opposed that even the needless deaths of tiny innocents couldn’t bridge the divide between them.
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What sickened me most, though, wasn’t our government’s failure to prioritize people over partisanship. It was knowing that there were parents who took their kids to school and returned home eternally empty-handed.
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Survivors of school shootings like me are now raising kids of their own, worrying they will suffer similar fates. Although the psychological effects of school shootings on parents may not yet be fully known or understood, research suggests that those with loved ones who have been exposed to “assaultive violence” have a higher risk of mental health disorders.
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School shootings don’t just deprive children of their lives and innocence; they deprive parents of a sense of safety and security their parents and grandparents took for granted.
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This reality is a painful part of our collective consciousness. We send our kids to school, hoping the horror of gun violence won’t happen there, but knowing no child or school is immune.
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Both sides seem content to debate the second amendment and the founders’ intent until they run out of breath. But in the meantime, Congress must come together, in earnest, to find common ground and common-sense solutions to stop this bleeding. The consequences of inaction have become too high – and our kids are counting on them.