We Have a Right to Live
Gun control is more than a headline
I don’t remember Columbine or Virginia Tech. I don’t remember 9/11. The first horrible tragedy I remember happening in the United States was Sandy Hook. On December 14, 2012, a man entered Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed twenty children and six teachers.
I was in the car with my dad, on my way to cheerleading practice. We were listening to Mark Lavine on the radio. I hated listening to Lavine’s show because he was so angry, always yelling about things that, at 15 years old, I didn’t understand yet. But as we pulled into the parking lot of my high school, Mark became suddenly quiet. Earlier that morning, he started, a young man had brought an assault rifle into an elementary school and killed a yet-to-be-determined number of children. Kindergartners.
My father and I sat in the car, listening in horror as more details were revealed, stunned into silence.
In the days that followed, photos of four and five-year-old children with their hands on each other’s shoulders walking single file out of the school were released, along with the names of all 26 victims.
Every year on the anniversary of September 11, I can’t say “never forget” because I don’t remember. I don’t know the terror and huge loss our country went through that day. But I remember December 14. And I didn’t want to ever forget. So I picked a name: Catherine Hubbard. She was six years old and had red hair. She had an older brother and loved animals. I wrote her name on a piece of paper and stuck it to the inside of my closest so I would be reminded of her every day. I couldn’t remember all 26 victims, but I can remember her and remember that she is more than a statistic.
Since December 2012, there have been 948 school shootings. This isn’t counting any of the hundreds of other major shootings that happened each year. And now we have a new one to add to the list — Robb Elementary. Once again, children have been killed for the simple act of going to school. To learn. To grow. To live their dreams and make friends.
As much as I wish I could, I cannot remember 948 names, one from each shooting.
I wrote this article over a month ago, right after the shooting in Uvalde, Texas. But I couldn’t publish it then. In late May, Uvalde covered the news but now it has been swept away by the constant news cycle and more horrible things happening in our country. Children dying on a daily basis cannot and should not be caught in the current of news. We need to be addressing gun control every day until we live in a country where this is not common. Our right to live outweighs anyone’s right to own a gun.
