OPINION: 'We are high school students in Tucson, and watching children being slaughtered in their own schools makes us afraid. As students, our safety, our lives, our futures remain uncertain as gun violence surges in America,' write Fida Bijin, Ellie…
Fida Bijin, Ellie Dorland, Mallika Sunder, Jeffrey Williams Special to the Arizona Daily Star The following is the opinion and analysis of the writers:
For us and our classmates, these tragedies no longer surprise us, we expect them. But we must not accept school shootings as the new normal. Shootings like the one that took the lives of these children in Uvalde are not inevitable — not in Texas, not anywhere. On an average day in the United States, at least 35 people are murdered with a gun, according to the New York Times. So far this year, 213 mass shootings have taken place. Just a few weeks ago, we saw the grocery store shooting in a predominantly Black neighborhood of Buffalo, New York.
The state of Texas, especially, has very few gun restrictions compared to the rest of the country. Last summer, Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill, despite objections from law enforcement agencies, that allowed anyone 21 years and older to carry a handgun in public without a permit or training. With laws like that, there can be no oversight over whether dangerous people like the 18-year-old at Uvalde abuse their weapons.
The Sandy Hook shooting was almost a decade ago, and it was considered a turning point in the gun violence prevention movement. We are now at another critical point.