Saturday, April 12, 2014

Sadly, We Live In Fear

It is sad that the biggest fear this generation lives in, is ourselves and our peers. Here we are sitting in school, a place that is supposed to be safe, but we don’t feel safe. Why is that? It is because of everything that has been happening around us. From shootings, to the recent stabbings, to the threat at my own school, how can we feel safe? A child will less likely learn in fear and it is sad that this is what the world has come to. 

In April of 1999, one of the biggest school shootings of history and of its time had occurred. Nothing of this capacity had ever occurred before, until the shootings and Columbine High School. Two seniors assembled an arsenal of guns and weapons and attacked the school, killing 12 students, one teacher, and injuring 24 others, before taking their own lives. This horrible tragedy left the nation scared and afraid; they did not know how to handle this. Nowadays, it feels like tragedies happen all the time of school

About a year and a half ago, the country was devastated with the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School. That December day, 26 people were shot, of which six were adults, and the remaining 20, were students. A man with a gun penetrated the school and destroyed lives forever. Listening to the police calls from that day hearing teachers in sheer terror is extremely heart wrenching. Listening to parents’ reminisce on their young kids who can never grow up, will make any one cry. These young children, so full of potential and so full of life, just disappeared from the world in a second. This is all because of one man with a gun who had the bright idea of entering a school on a rampage.

Just this week, there was a 16 year old boy who went on not a shooting rampage, but a stabbing one. He stabbed 20 kids at Franklin Regional Senior High School. When kids were entering the school, he stood there and stabbed or slashed anyone who got in his way. Though it lasted five minutes, he injured so many people and left many in fear.

It seems like these days all we do is live in fear. It has become a part of our society to go to school in fear that something may happen. In the past kids had drills for bomb threats due to war and weather related drills and fire drills. Now students are preparing for attacks from their own peers or people who could come into the school and cause devastation. That sense of freedom and openness where the doors were open and school was a safe haven has disappeared and remerged as an era of locked doors and fear. It is sad to see this is where society has led to and we must hope for change.

For more information about this week's stabbing events, click here and here

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