I was born only a year after Columbine,
Called one of the worst school shootings in our nation.
Every couple of months, every couple of weeks, throughout my entire life -
Virginia Tech.
Newtown.
29 dead.
26 who were killed, children.
We had seen it disappear, we had seen people forget.
It's not the time to talk about gun control.
Gun control is not the answer here.
If all our government and president can do is
send "thoughts and prayers," then it's time for victims to be the change that we
need to see.
The students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are
changing the narrative around school shootings.
Why should they listen to me?
Because I had to sit in a classroom, in the dark,
next to 20 of my friends watching us all text our parents that we love them,
because we didn't know if the shooter was going to come up to our door.
That's why I'm credible.
We wanted to know what other students might be thinking, so we asked.
And got over 1,600 responses.
Generally I think I could say I feel pretty safe in my school.
I should feel safe.
I definitely don't feel safe at schools right now.
*Scoffs* Well, no. No. It's a clear "no".
School shootings have kind of just been a lot
this year.
What if we're next?
I feel very safe. Our school
just spent a bunch of money on like, security upgrades, which
you know.
Perhaps I'm just telling myself I'm safe, because I want to be.
We do have campus carry here. I do sometimes feel safer when I'm with my
friends that I do know like, have concealed carry weapons with them.
I sit in school in fear, because of the status quo.
Ever since I was a kid really that I
can remember, I remember school shootings being a thing.
I haven't felt safe since
Sandy Hook happened and I was only in like sixth grade back then and I just
haven't really felt safe, I've always had some kind of anxiety going into school.
Maybe this is a real possibility, like this is something that could happen to me.
Yeah I feel safe, but there's this part of me that wonders if I should be
feeling safe.
The lights went out in the library a few days ago and everyone was
just kind of prickled up like, what's going on?
Do we need to run?
Do we need to hide?
We do routine lockdown drills.
This is pretty terrifying, the fact that we have to sit here and pretend that a shooter
is coming into our school.
We have a policy that's called "Run Hide Fight" for
an active shooter.
I am lucky enough that I have a school with outdoor hallways
which means, in an event of an evacuation I have much more exit points than a
normal school would.
I know a couple spots that I could potentially hide in if they
were unlocked.
They say, "oh if they come into your classroom start throwing
textbooks, start throwing desks, go and punch them and that's gonna do nothing."
What do I think of teachers having access to guns?
I don't like the idea at all.
It's a terrible idea.
Quite possibly the stupidest situation I could ever think of.
Arming teachers is normalizing school shootings.
It could be
beneficial, but it has to, I mean it'd have to be done right.
Teachers with guns is like
not a good teaching environment for young kids who need like sunshine and rainbows.
I would feel much safer actually, with them being armed.
The day I recorded this, March 14th, 2018
a student in California was injured because of a
teacher having a firearm and accidentally discharging it in the classroom.
This plan reminds me a lot of what students call "bullsh*t."
We need to start
thinking about what we can do before the gun enters the school.
One solution
could just be having metal detectors.
Universal background checks, raising the
age by a firearm to 21.
I'm not one for banning guns, because I feel like there
are good law-abiding citizens that deserve to have the right to have a gun.
If your right is apparently harming the lives of other students, it shouldn't be
considered a right anymore.
I think really the only guns that should be
allowed at the most are hunting rifles.
The average citizen does not need to be
able to purchase any of the AKs, the 47 the 10. Any of those.
Regulate ammo a lot more.
Nothing in the Second Amendment states anything about ammo.
Would it be
so bad to consider similar laws to what exists in the UK and Australia and
Canada and all of these places where they don't have a mass shooting every week?
Our government needs to really step up and do what they're supposed to do,
because it seems like students now are being the leaders that our leaders are
supposed to be.
I feel like there isn't really much I can do because you know I'm like
one person, but I feel like we can all do something together.
I just wrote a letter to my senator.
If I can talk to Congress, I would just you know flat out say
"put more security in schools."
Stop taking money from the NRA.
I don't understand
how anyone can feel okay with themselves knowing that students are dying and you
have an opportunity to fix it and you're not.
It's not the liberal lobbyists that
the NRA has to fear, it's not our representatives, or even our senators.
It's not our parents.
It's us.
And you should be scared. I'm 18, I voted in my primaries.
I'll be able to vote in the next elections, so.
I'll be 18 next month, so I will be able to vote in midterms.
We need to vote people
out who take money from the NRA.
Let our legislators to know that we are not
gonna remain silent, that we demand change.
And they should really be the
ones dedicating time to thinking and solving these issues, not a 15 year old
like in a classroom.
I just want to say thank you to the 1,635 students that
wrote in to us from around the world.
I'm sorry we couldn't put every single one
of you into this video, but trust me we read
every word you sent in and it was integral to us making this video.
Thank you.