School shootings shouldn’t be a common occurrence

When I was in elementary school, I didn’t have to worry about someone coming into my school with an AR-15 and shooting whoever was in their path. If anything, I had to worry about if I was going to get a smiley sticker on my popsicle stick for being a good student that day. It’s 2018 now and children all over the country have to take extra precautions in their schools for fatal shootings that they shouldn’t even be hearing about.

Being a junior in high school, I would never have thought to be having class conversations about school shootings and what we would do if we had one. I would never have expected my teacher to tell me that they will do anything in their power to protect their students. I would never have expected my own President to ignore this issue just to have it progress into something so much worse than before.  Students in America’s schools are fearing for their lives as more school shootings happen in all areas of the country, whether they are big or small, fatalities or no fatalities, elementary or high school. Why does our government and our own President wait so long to solve the problem? It isn’t something that should be put on the back burner anymore, it is something that needs action.

Trump repealed the Obama-era regulation when he joined office which would require the SSA to send information of people with mental disabilities to the National Background Check System, which to me is a pretty good idea but many others found it shocking that Obama would think that all people with a disability were ‘a harm to society’ since mental disability can mean numerous disabilities. Both sides are completely understandable but wouldn’t mental health checks be far more beneficial for us rather than just selling these assault weapons to just anyone? When an individual causes a school shooting, it is almost always proven that they have some sort of disorder which caused them to do these things to these students. Even recently in Florida, the shooter is said to have mental disorders and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

How long are our political leaders going to keep pushing these problems to the side? America is angry and wants something done. Students are causing uproars and Walk-Outs to protest against these inefficient gun laws because a school shooting can happen anywhere now. The continuous broken promises from our President of action over the last few months is now becoming unacceptable, how can someone who we are supposed to put our trust in ignore such a horrible situation for so long? Something has to be done so I don’t have to walk into my school with a constant guard up in fear of someone walking in, with a gun and opening fire into my hallway. We are tired of our voices being ignored and if something isn’t done, the more common a school shooting will be in America.