Massacre in Uvalde—It’s Time to Change or We’ll Change It For You
My heart is torn apart today. I sat in my morning class with a pounding headache. I am well hydrated, my allergies and overall health are in check, but my heart is burdened. This headache is a result of stress, of grief, and of anger. Imagine this: You're scrolling through your social media and see a photo of a sweet little boy whose smile reminds you of every single memory of innocence you have, wrapped into one. You go on to read that his parents had to undergo a DNA swab because this little boy's body was so mutilated, that his parents couldn't identify him as their own child. Well, this is our reality. This is the burden we bear as a result of being grand citizens of the ‘home of the brave’ and ‘the land of the free’. The land of individual rights that often compromise basic morals and ethics—that can cost an innocent child their life.
10 days after the racially motivated mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, a gunman armed with a military-grade assault rifle, an AR-15, and tactical gear, entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24th and slaughtered, from what we know so far, 19 children between the ages of 7-11 and 2 teachers. According to authorities in Texas, at the time of my writing this, the death toll as public identification of victims and law enforcement investigation continues, is expected to rise.
The shooter was 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, a local from Uvalde. He was 18. Why is it that in this country, an 18-year-old can purchase weapons that were quite literally created for the most gruesome theaters of war in modern history, without any background check or mental evaluation?
So far this year, through May, there have been "213" mass shootings, "defined as one in which four or more people were killed or injured," according to The New York Times, which receives their data from a non-profit organization, The Gun Violence Archive, of whom bring awareness to the issue of gun violence, by recording each and every incident that fits this definition of a mass shooting. At the time of my writing this blog post, we are 145 days into the year. The number of mass shootings thus far exceeds the number of days we've had this year by 68.
To really emphasize the magnitude of this issue, let's take a look at mass shootings on an international level. If you guys access any internet search engine and look up "rankings of countries with mass shootings 2022", you should see an article by the worldpopulationreview.com website. If you read through this page, at the very bottom, there is a chart with 27 countries ranked—the top being the country with the most school shootings this current year, and the one with the least at the bottom. The United States is at the very top with a whopping number of 288. The country that comes in second highest out of 27 is Mexico, with wait for it, 8. If this doesn't say something, I don't know what will. The disparity between the U.S. coming in at the number one spot for school shootings this year and Mexico coming in second place is literally 280. This list includes places such as Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Azerbaijan, countries that our State Department advises against travel due to frightening levels of violence and terrorism. Yet we have a bloodbath happening within our own school system, more than any of these countries that are considered third-world! Aren't we the leading country of the free world? Of the first-world?
I'm just a 20-year-old college student. If I can conduct my own research and compile these statistics within a blog article, to clearly make a claim, warrant it with evidence, and advocate for my fellow Americans on an issue that gives great cause for alarm, then our politicians in Washington, in the almighty U.S. Senate, should be quite aware of the same information I am writing on. Yet are they doing anything? No! Does anybody remember the horrifying Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting of 2012? I do—I was in 5th grade. I lived through the initiatives our lawmakers and politicians put in place in response to this tragedy. Want to know what they were? Active shooter drills where we were taught how to barricade a classroom, hide in hopes of not being murdered, fight back if the shooter entered the room we were in, and run for our lives if we even had the chance. No gun reform was put in place. Nothing to actually protect the children of this nation, just a list of instructions on how to fend for ourselves in the increasingly perilous American school system. Adults are placing the weight of survival that combat veterans are trained for, on children. Super brave am I right?
Many of you most likely know what the NRA or the National Rifle Association is. BBC.com states that this political lobbying organization has been around since the late 19th century and grew to influence in the legislative branch of our government through its, "Political Action Committee (PAC), which channels funds to legislators." Many of our Senators in the House of Representatives (HOR), who are able to pass gun reform legislation, all receive massive donations from the NRA clearly influencing their actions surrounding firearms in this country. There's a chart on elections.bradyunited.org, that lists different U.S. Senators, the state they represent in the HOR, the total number of donations they receive from the NRA, and the gun deaths in their state, per-year, to show the direct correlation between the NRA's lobbying power, lack of gun reform, and gun violence. For example, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, receives a grand total of $3,303,355 a year from the NRA and his state averages about 2,568 deaths due to firearms each year. Speaking directly to the situation at hand, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas receives $176,274 and his state averages about 3,139 gun-related deaths per-year, now including the 21 beautiful souls that perished in Uvalde.
These Senators, are sitting in their offices living the life, going on vacations, playing golf, and collecting their checks while their country is drowning in pools of innocent blood around them.
When will there be actual change?! We need highly energized, persuasive, bold, and sharp community leaders as well as people of influence, to rise up and rally the masses, because, clearly, without a loud cry of desperation and raw pain, our government will not be swayed in the direction of gun reform.
We aren't going to see change overnight. It's going to take radical steps and a massive push to wake up our government. Now, I'm not advocating against the right to bear arms—I'm pushing for reform that will make it so that it's not a minutes long process for someone to get their hands on military-grade weaponry, with the aim to senselessly take life. If some sicko comes onto my campus and starts harming my community or if somebody racially targets my father or my grandmother, and tries to harm them, I would like to think that I would not hesitate to protect them if I were armed. Until we see this change, we need to learn how to stand up for those who are threatened by this senseless violence that we have been experiencing, and to start protecting ourselves.
I want reform. Clearly, law enforcement won't. do. a. thing. Watch the footage from Uvalde. They physically suppressed parents who were so distraught at hearing the slaughter of their babies while the police stood by FOR 91 MINUTES, that they attempted to storm the school. If law enforcement won't do their jobs, then we'll have to. It's time to start protecting ourselves as we push for gun legislation reform.
In Buffalo, the shooter was taken in without a scratch. We all know what the outcome would've been if that boy, not man, was BIPOC—in most situations he wouldn't even have to be armed for the police to turn into a firing squad if he were of-color. We've seen it happen too many times. That's our reality.
We need reform. An activist in it much longer than myself, summed it up beautifully, "We need to move from rhetoric to substance." We need to see bills passed, budgets appropriated towards preventing these tragedies, legislative action, as well as real and concrete change. We need background checks and mental health evaluations to ensure that a psychopath cannot cause carnage with a weapon intricately designed to leave no survivors. No family should have to undergo DNA swabs in order to help identify the bodies of their deceased children, because their little bodies are so unrecognizable from the onslaught of murderous bullets from a monster’s gun. People are dying. Children are dying.
If these politicians still don't care after they hear our cries, if we still don't get a seat at the table, then I'll say this again—we are the next generation, we are gathering and growing in massive numbers, time is a-ticking and we're up and coming. We will make change and we don't just want it now; we need it now. I don't want this to be my children's reality—I don't want my reality to be theirs. I don't want these poor families' reality to be mine. My heart breaks for them.
Rest in power to the precious lives, the little and big heroes' lives that were lost this week. I'm going to provide a link at the bottom of this article and on my Instagram page that goes to a GoFundMe page containing multiple and verified fundraisers to support the families of the victims that perished and the community of Uvalde as a whole.
I'll say this again too, change starts with healing. Let's help this small but mighty community heal and lift up these angels in love. Let's change the system for the faces you're seeing across social media right now. Let's rise because we're too woke to stay silent!
I love you all. Take extra time to hug your loved ones and process however you need to.
https://www.gofundme.com/c/act/donate-to-texas-elementary-school-shooting-relief