I'm Too Young to Vote, But Not Too Young to Die From Gun Violence

It’s official; the Republican Vice Presidential nominee declared school shootings “a fact of life.” That’s what JD Vance said at a rally in Arizona when asked about the recent shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, right after he told the crowd “We don’t have to like the reality that we live in, but it is the reality we live in.”

As a high school student, I’m terrified to know that the fate of students like me might soon be left in the hands of candidates who have accepted that we will always have to live in fear and whose only plan is to bring more guns into our schools. These reactive approaches only put students at greater risk and fail to address the root causes of the gun violence epidemic. High schoolers like me deserve more than that, don’t we?

I was 14 years old when I realized that school was not safe. I was riding the bus to school the day after the Uvalde shooting, where an 18-year-old killed 19 children and two teachers with an assault rifle in a Texas elementary school. My friend turned to me with concern in his eyes and asked, “You know what to do if this happens here, right?” I did know. Like most other kids in America, I’d been preparing for a school shooting since I was in elementary school. Lock the door. Cover the window. Hide as far away as possible—in a closet, or under a desk. Don’t let yourself become a target. Locate the first aid kit in case one of us is shot. Stop the bleeding. Wait for help.

So no, gun violence does not have to be a fact of life, and we refuse to accept it. We won’t “just get over it,” as Trump said after a school shooting in Perry, Iowa.

I’ve been preparing for a school shooting since I was five. While kids in other countries were at recess, I was huddled with my classmates in a corner being told to stay quiet and not move as people banged on the classroom door. They used to tell us we were practicing in case a bear got into the school, and I thought that was the most terrifying thing in the world—a bear in our school hallways. But now I know that the truth is far scarier––and far more likely. That day as a 14-year-old riding the bus to school, I realized that the real danger wasn’t some distant threat, but the “fact of life” that anyone could easily access a firearm and kill us. From then on, I became cautious about who I opened the door for at school. And I began to fear for my life every time my principal went over the speakers to announce a lockdown.

And I’ve done more than change my mindset—I’ve taken action. Two days after the Uvalde shooting, I helped students at my school lead a walkout to remember the victims and call for gun safety legislation. Since that first protest, I’ve devoted my time in high school to gun violence prevention, working with March For Our Lives, a youth-led gun violence prevention movement. To JD Vance and anyone who thinks similarly, let me tell you from the young people of America: we do not accept being killed by guns in our classrooms and in our communities as a “fact of life.” Our “fact of life” is that the time we’re meant to spend on school and with friends is instead spent doing what politicians should be doing for us: fighting for a future free of gun violence.

So no, gun violence does not have to be a fact of life, and we refuse to accept it. We won’t “just get over it,” as Trump said after a school shooting in Perry, Iowa. Instead, we will change these so-called facts of life. We will fight for a country where a 14-year-old can’t access an assault rifle from his dad, as in the recent Apalachee High School shooting. We will fight for a country where students like those at Apalachee will never have to drag their teacher’s dying body across the floor and use their clothes to try to stop his bleeding. And we will fight for a country where teachers and students won’t lose their lives simply for attending school.

In 2025, when the next mass shooting happens––statistically about twice a day in America––we will either have a president who tells us to “get over it,” or a president who demands, “We have to end this epidemic of gun violence in our country once and for all.” I want the latter. I want lawmakers who are determined to do what it takes to help students like me feel safe at school. I want an administration that keeps military-grade assault rifles out of the hands of dangerous civilians and will pass safe storage laws so that no one can access someone else's gun to hurt themselves or others.