Remember when Columbine was the most insane thing that could ever happen?
I do. Distinctly. It was April 1999. I was a junior in high school. The kids killed were my peers. Massachusetts schools were on April vacation that week (the marathon and Patriots Day had been the day before) which meant my news-hound Katie Couric/Jessica Savitch wannabe self stayed glued to the TV sucking up all the information I could get for days (side note: read the book “Columbine” by Dave Cullen, it’s excellent and it was fascinating how little I/we really knew despite consuming every bit of media surrounding it at the time).
12 students killed. 1 teacher. Insane. This would never happen again! Littleton, Colorado. Quiet Denver suburb whose name you’d never forget. It’s been almost 19 years, but you still see the straight lines of kids pouring out of the school, rushing to safety. Like it was yesterday. Littleton.
Last fall, my mother and I were driving home through Connecticut (this was approximately one month after I was at a concert where 58 people were murdered) and saw the exit sign for Newtown. “Awww, Newtown…” I said. My mom didn’t seem to know what my little outburst was for. “Sandy Hook,” I prompted, “the shooting.” OH! Of course! Sandy Hook is more or less in our backyard, but mass school shootings are a dime a dozen these days. Small town names will never be emblazoned in your mind like Littleton. Your first.
August 1999. Our senior year. Every high school in America still reeling from the Columbine massacre. They took the summer to get their shit together. We returned to a new system where the doors to the building were locked. There were cameras. If you had a doctor’s appointment and were showing up to school an hour late, you had to be buzzed in.
Mine was a small town. Pre-Columbine we could slip in and out of side doors at will. But this was the new normal. This made us feel in control and comforted and like this wouldn’t happen to us. And every other sane school out there was taking similar action. See Columbine. Learn from it. Over and out.
Sure, these measures were probably overdue and wouldn’t hurt but—IT. WAS. NEVER. ABOUT. LOCKING. DOORS.
I stand with Parkland because I survived the deadliest mass shooting in US history at the hands of a psycho who was LEGALLY able to amass a wide arsenal of semi-automatics designed to hunt people. I stand with Parkland because I believe they are going to be the change we have all wanted for a long, long time. I stand with Parkland because they recognize and are vocal about the fact that people are only listening to them because they are mostly white, wealthy kids. They want to use their white privilege to give a voice and a platform to minority kids who live with gun violence every day and for whom this isn’t just an isolated incident. No one cares when they die. No one gives them a microphone. Well, it’s time to start. Enough is enough is enough.
We are the only ones living this way. Our laws need to change. Blame mental illness or video games, but every country has those. What they don’t have are guns for days, lax laws, an NRA that has their government by the balls and weapons of war (AR-15s—mass shooter weapon of choice, and the like) readily available to the public after a background check.
“‘MURICA!! FREEDOM!” me all you want, but true freedom is LIVING. Not your ability to buy an AR-15 and go shoot it in the desert. It’s not worth it and enough is enough. Kindergarteners practicing hiding in closets in active shooter drills. Is this what it means to be free?
I stand with Parkland because we’re about to make history. Columbine was April 1999. I’ve waited 19 years for this. We all have.
DC, I’m coming for you.
Here’s to the future.
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