how many will it take?

On March 23, 2018, on the eve of a planned trip into New York City with a few friends to walk in the March for Our Lives, I received a call from a classmate. She was offering me the opportunity to speak at a local March for Our Lives in New Jersey. I was faced with a question: be one in a large crowd marching the avenues of New York City, bound to participate in a few great photo ops, or speak for a smaller crowd closer to home? I guess the need to be a voice standing alongside Parkland students and Newton parents ultimately made my decision.

My father helped me pull together a five minute speech for the next morning. It was nearly midnight, and we wrote and re-worked my points until I felt it did justice to the gravity of the situation America was in.

I touched on a few points and personal stories. I spoke about a time when I was very young, living in Orange County, California. A tall, bald man donning a black t-shirt and jeans, followed by the police, pulled up to a playground my family and I were at. My mother pulled us from the slide and raced home. Was that man armed? Why were the police chasing him? It was hard for my post-toddler brain to process, let alone understand, why we were running from this man and why he could have wanted to hurt us. Why was my mother so afraid? Would he follow us home?

I then spoke about the twice monthly required “lock down drills” we did in school since I was in kindergarten. How are children no older than six supposed to understand why somebody would enter their school, where they play with friends and should feel safe, to hurt them? No child should have fear in the place they go to learn.

My speech closed with a few statistics about gun violence just in the first few months of 2018.

When the time came to speak, I stood in front of a news camera, an audience of people ranging from preschool to seniors, and some of my closest friends belonging to my political arena. With shaky breaths and nervous twirls of my hair, I delivered my message.

After the students finished their speeches, we marched around the center of town with homemade signs chanting phrases such as, “Not one more,” and “Hey, hey, ho, ho, the NRA has got to go!” and, my personal favorite, “Thoughts and prayers are not enough.”

When millions of Americans, particularly students, walked that day, I guess we really thought that there would be some form of change. I mean, a democracy is supposed to reflect the people, right? So why is it that, a year and a few months later, two deadly shootings take place in the same day?

On the CNN home page right now, the screen is divided into two sections, one on each side. On the left, the headline reads: “9 dead in Dayton, Ohio.” The right side reads, “20 dead in El Paso, Texas.” The large headline on the top states: “A deadly day in America.”

The Fox homepage consists of a manipulated photo of Donald Trump over people crying and embracing. The headline and blurbs all speak about the President’s response to the massacres. But what response?

Beto O’Rourke and Cory Booker have spent more time addressing the nation than its elected president. While O’Rourke and Castro comfort their home states and stand with their victims, the president hides behind a twitter icon, typing away.

The shooters were not illegal immigrants or foreigners, but home bred American citizens, attacking their own kind.

How many more will it take before change is enacted? Why are everyday citizens carrying weapons of war around? What bred so much hate in this country?

my friend and I at the March for Our Lives (2018)