Why am I spending my Saturday out on the streets, marching for gun reform?
Because I’m not willing to live in an America where bullets tear through classrooms on a monthly basis, claiming the lives of beautiful children who never get the chance to live up to their full potential. That this is a frequent occurrence in America now, fills me with a profound sadness for those it has affected, and a deep fear of the day when I may experience it myself.
At school, every time the intercom crackles to life there’s something in the back of my mind that says “get ready,” that says “this is it,” or “brace yourself.”
In class, I catch myself daydreaming an active-shooter scenario: “How long is the drop to ground below the window?” “Would I have the guts to follow protocol and stay in place?” “Could these desks be used to form a barricade?” And then I realize, “Wow, I can’t believe I just thought that.”
But such are the times. Are my fears completely logical? No, probably not. But they’re there … that’s all I know. This fear has no place in our schools. Death has no place in our schools. Not in America, and not anywhere on God’s green Earth. This is why I’ll march.
In 20 years, when we reflect in horror at how casually death walked the hallways of American schools carrying an AR-15, leaving carnage in his wake, I’ll be there to tell my children how I acted. How I fought for change, so that no more parents had to get the earth-shattering call, so that no more brothers and sisters had to learn of their sibling’s demise, so that no boys and girls had to realize their best friend would never sleep over again.
Until then, we fight. Every life is a miracle in itself, and worth fighting for 10 million times over. Rest in peace to those who fell in Great Mills, Maryland, and Parkland, Florida, and every other school where bullets have rent the air. I’ll be thinking of you on Saturday. Enough is enough.
Ethan Cooper
Northampton