The Scoop

        Gun policies all around the world are very different from each other; some counties allow their citizens to be armed as a way of protecting themselves, but some others consider this act illegal. Like many people, it is valid to think the United States of America, for being a big prosperous country that many people consider an ideal place to live in, or a dream that deserves to be followed has strict laws on guns to ensure people’s safety. Nonetheless, this is not the case.

 

        According to the United States’ constitution, anyone over the age of 18 can legally purchase a gun, and in some states like Minnesota, any person over the age of 16 may legally possess a firearm without their parents’ consent, while 14 is the minimum age to handle guns outside a municipality in this state. Although the second amendment says, "right of the people to keep and bear arms", the policies for carrying a firearm are regulated by each state, but the ones for who can have a gun are regulated on a federal level. But how do companies regulate who can buy these lethal products? A dozen out of the 50 states require a permit to buy a handgun, and only 3 of them require it to acquire a rifle. These numbers and rules may not seem bad or complicated, but when looking at the recent massacres that have affected thousands of people, mainly teens and their families, it is something to worry about.

 

        Back in 1999, two teens, inspired on the Oklahoma City Bombing, went on a shooting spree at their high school, Columbine High School, where they killed 13 people and wounded 20 others. This tragedy became the worst high school shooting in the U.S and raised a national debate on gun control. Unfortunately, nothing much was done. They only sentenced the man who had sold the gun to the two shooters to six years in prison but never did something to change the law. Although various shootings in both schools, and universities continued happening throughout the years, 19 years later, on May 18th, 2018, another school shooting happened at Santa Fe High School in Texas. At around 7:30 in the morning, Dimitrios Pagourtzis, opened fired and killed 10 people, including a Pakistani exchange student; he later stated that he only did that because he didn’t like those people (the ones he killed and injured). Again, nothing was done by the government, but students, inspired on movements created by the teens from Parkland, decided to create campaigns and raise awareness.

 

        February 14th, 2018, a tragic day for members from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, a school located in Parkland, Florida just 50 minutes away from Miami. What was supposed to be a wonderful Valentine’s day, ended up being a day for grieving the valuable lives lost in this catastrophe. On this day, Nikolas Cruz, a former student from that high school who had been expelled for disciplinary reasons, decided to take the life of people with a rifle. When he entered school, he activated the fire alarm. That sound was weird for many students, as Nicole Balzer explains. They had had a fire drill earlier that morning. The alarm generated confusion on students and teachers, but they decided to follow the protocol and head out of the classrooms. That’s the moment when Cruz began what became the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S history.

 

          Students began texting their families, recording with their phones, and tweeting about the situation, to give everyone a glimpse about the real-life horror story they were going through. According to reports, Nikolas only planned to shoot on the first floor, but then, he quickly moved to the second and third one where he finally dropped his rifle and bag and decided to blend with the students who were heading out, after murdering 17 people. Police and SWAT teams arrived, helicopters were buzzing over the school, but he slipped away. After committing this crime, he headed out to Subway inside a Walmart to buy a drink and then to a McDonalds. Police spoke with the family that had taken him in since his adoptive parents had died. They told them he was at a nearby McDonalds, and police finally arrested him.

 

        At one point it was thought to send Nikolas Cruz into the death penalty, but it was not possible. Instead, he got sentenced to 34 life terms in prison with no possibility of parole (temporary release of a prisoner who, before the competition of the sentence period, agrees to certain conditions). And guess what? The government, again, didn’t do anything about it. They just sent out their prayers and visited the victims who were injured. But in comparison to previous massacres, students didn’t remain quiet, they did not sit around waiting for solutions, they decided to take action. They wanted to make a change.

 

        Teens from this high school decided to begin campaigns against the National Rifle Association (NRA). The day after the shooting Cameron Kasky invited Alex Wind and Jaclyn Corin, all three students from MSD, over to his house to plan out a march for gun reform and awareness. Moreover, they began the #NeverAgain hashtag on Twitter. Some days later, Emma Gonzalez delivered a powerful speech explaining the events and the aftermath. Along with other fellow classmates, like David Hogg, they created the Never Again Movement and the March for Our Lives to call out the NRA and create awareness on this topic. The March for Our Lives took place in the U.S (mainly Washington) where over 1.2+ million protestors participated, and in countries from all around the world. The student’s purpose, as well as the protestors, was to urge to the government to perform a universal background check on gun’s sales, raise the federal age of possession and ownership, ban high-capacity magazines and bump stocks in the USA, and renew the assault-weapons ban.

 

          Words come short when describing all the superb campaigns, marches, and initiatives these teens have done in order to finally achieve a change. People may think teens are “too young” to make a big change in the world, that they don’t have the sufficient tools to do this, but when someone believes in something so strong, nothing is impossible to achieve. In the end, we are the future generation of this world, and if you want to live in a good world, stand up for what you believe and start taking action because little changes can lead to huge ones.