Content warning: This essay is about gun violence.
What I remember most about March 22, 2021, is the sirens. I heard them wailing through my bedroom window in the early afternoon, but at the time, I barely paid them any mind. I didn’t know it then, but it was one of my final moments of “before.” For the rest of my life, I’d live with the “after.”
The “after” is my life after a mass shooting took place less than a mile from my college house, at the grocery store I frequented in Boulder, Colorado. After I saw photos of motionless bodies lying in the parking lot where I’d return my shopping carts. After I heard stories of workers and customers running for their lives in a place that was supposed to be safe, even mundane. After 10 people senselessly lost their lives in a family neighborhood in one of the most liberal cities in the country.
I knew the drill when it came to mass shootings in the US: For a few days, there would be 24-hour news coverage and thousands of sympathetic tweets. Then there would be arguments between people who wanted gun control and people who didn’t. But after a week or so, everyone would just… move on. Some other big news item would happen and people would shift their attention to it. I shouldn’t have expected the world to stop because of what happened in my town, but against my better judgment, I did.
I hoped that by some miracle, this shooting would be the one to spark change. President Joe Biden had just been inaugurated, and since he had pledged to work toward ending gun violence during his campaign, I’d really hoped this time, the country would see meaningful action.
Of course, this shooting followed the pattern that each one before it had. By the following week, hardly anyone was talking about Boulder anymore — they had moved on to the next tragedy (because America has no shortage of them). Politicians, celebrities, and strangers on the internet went from loudly professing their support to saying absolutely nothing in a matter of days. But no one in my community would ever be the same again; I know I’m definitely not.
For years, the U.S. has repeated a doomed cycle of experiencing tragedy, doing nothing, and moving on as if living with daily mass casualty events is normal. It’s not.
On Sept. 4, 2024, the city of Winder, Georgia, felt this devastating pain when a shooter opened fire at Apalachee High School, killing two students and two teachers, hospitalizing nine, and forever changing an entire town. The victims, their families, and the community as a whole had their lives forever changed in a matter of minutes. With this latest tragedy still at the forefront of people’s minds, I have to ask the same questions thousands of people have wondered during the age of mass shootings: How many people have to die before something changes? How many grief-stricken families have to be ripped apart by senseless violence? How many people will have to live in fear of losing the people they love in “safe” places? How many times will the country repeat this same, tired cycle without even attempting to do something differently?
For years, the U.S. has repeated a doomed cycle of experiencing tragedy, doing nothing, and moving on as if living with daily mass casualty events is normal. It’s not. And I am tired of people acting like it is.
I know many feel powerless over this cycle of horror and inaction, but I haven’t lost hope. Experiencing a mass shooting in my community was terrifying and traumatizing, but it also filled me with a drive to make change happen — not just by being politically active, but by using my voice to encourage others to be politically active, as well. It’s never been more apparent that in this election, gun violence is on the ballot, and I am calling on all the people like me, who are sick and tired of living in fear and grief, to join me in voting for leaders and lawmakers who will actually do something about gun violence in this country, bringing in a new era of real action.
We don’t have to live and die like this; we have the power to make ourselves heard and create meaningful gun control legislation. The shooting in Georgia was not the first of its kind, but if we come together and use our voices this November, hopefully it can be one of the last.