Survivor: I will never be OK until we stop school shootings

When news of another school shooting breaks, friends kindly reach out to see how I am doing. They want me to know they are thinking about me and praying for me. I always appreciate that outreach because on days like these I am not OK. I am far from it.

On the days following another school shooting, I am back in the lobby of Heath High School, in West Paducah, Ky., on Dec. 1, 1997. I am 14 years old again, lying prone on the floor watching blood spatter on the cold tile floor in front of me. I am touching the side of my head, bringing my hand down only to see blood — my blood — on my fingertips. I am once again realizing that I have been shot in the head. I am lying still and closing my eyes so I don’t get shot again because I remember the survivors of the Luby’s Cafeteria shooting in Texas saying they did the same thing. I am again saying what I think will be my final prayer and readying myself to die.

Then I suddenly accelerate 20 years into the future and see the same thing happening to other children in another school. This week, it's Parkland, Fla. With 18 school shootings so far this year, it’s happening with ridiculous and unacceptable frequency. Twenty years after the shooting at Heath, my heart breaks at the realization that for my children, active shooter drills have become as commonplace as tornado and fire drills.

And now, I am angry. Angry that the only solution the party in control of our state and national governments offers to the problem of gun violence is thoughts and prayers — and more guns. Angry that the party in control of the levers of government will not take commonsense action to regulate guns and stop this horror show that now repeats day after day in grisly syndication.

I was angered by tweets from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell offering his thoughts to the families of Marshall County (Ky.) High School, where a shooter opened fire last month, while taking no real action to solve the problem. It felt disingenuous coming from the same politician who gloated on Facebook via Internet meme that he stopped commonsense gun regulation attempts after 26 children and adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

I was angry that I had to watch our selfie-obsessed Kentucky governor, Matt Bevin, basking in press conference coverage about the Marshall County High School shooting when I know that his only solution to gun violence in Louisville was for prayer groups to walk the streets. I was shot while I was participating in a prayer group, Governor, so what’s your Plan B?

The governor revealed that his Plan B is to blame pop culture and the media. It’s the same tired sermon that was preached 20 years ago after I was shot. Plan B is to ignore the fact that American pop culture is one of our chief exports to the world, yet somehow we’re the only country under a plague of gun violence. Plan B is to refuse to talk about guns when we talk about gun violence even though U.S. citizens own nearly half of all privately owned guns in the world. There are, on average, 89 guns per 100 people in the USA, yet the governor won’t talk about guns in a conversation about gun violence.

Gun violence is not a problem unique to rural, urban or suburban America. Small, close-knit communities are not immune. It is everywhere and can affect anyone, and the toll gun violence takes on our children — children for whom we share a collective responsibility — will continue to echo through the generations in this country unless we take action beyond offering thoughts and prayers.

We can start by strengthening and enforcing laws that keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers because 54% of mass shooters are linked to domestic or family violence. We should require background checks for all gun sales because 34% of mass shooters would have been prohibited from owning or possessing a gun if they had undergone a background check. We know that background checks make a difference because Missouri saw a 25% increase in its gun homicide rate when it dropped requirements for background checks and permits for all handgun sales.

Source : usatoday