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The Nashville School Shooting: Victims & Allies Continue Fighting for Change

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Source: Colin Lloyd via Unsplash

There have been over 150 mass shootings in the US this year alone

Jlavraie25 contributor

Written by

Juliana Jaramillo

There have been over 150 mass shootings in the US this year alone, according to the nonprofit research group The Gun Violence Archive. One of those mass shootings happened on March 27th, when a shooter entered the Covenant School, A Nashville, TN Presbyterian School, and killed three nine-year-old students and three adults. The shooter, Audrey Hale, who used he/him pronouns, was a former student at the school. Because of the lax gun laws in the state of Tennessee, Hale had been able to purchase guns, including two assault-style firearms, from 5 different shops in the area, even while known to be under a "doctor's care for an emotional disorder." As more details about that day surface, the community quickly moved past the identity of the shooter, which has been politicized and used by pro-gun politicians and right-wing media and has focused instead on the immediate need for gun control.

Parents, children, and community members staged a school walk-out on April 4th, just one week after the fatal event. March for Our Lives, an organization started in 2018 after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, organized the walk-out, march, and protest in the Tennessee capitol. This organization and other advocates before them have been asking their elected officials for the same thing for years: "Put children's lives before gun lobbying interests." Although reasonable to many Americans and the rest of the world, this request is often met with vague responses and tired pro-gun rhetoric. For example, while confronted last week about the shooting, Republican Lawmaker Tim Burchett responded: "I don't think you're going to stop the gun violence. You've got to change people's hearts." This kind of scapegoating has taken constituents to the streets time and time again, as they assert that the ease of access to guns is killing our youth.

Decades of inaction and the constant political gridlock around the topic of gun control make it hard to believe that comprehensive federal laws will ever pass, which casts a dense air of hopelessness for victims and allies around the country. While President Joe Biden and Democratic leaders have called for a complete ban on assault weapons, most members of the GOP continue to cite mental health issues as the main issue and propose increasing the numbers of "good guys with guns." Some states, including Tennessee, have recently relaxed gun laws, putting the lives of the people they are supposed to protect, especially children, in danger and openly disrespecting the grieving families calling for change.

Although little to no legislation has passed to protect the lives of students and young people disproportionately affected by the proliferation of gun violence, a new generation of fearless young political leaders, such as Justin J. Pearson and Justin Jones, are making their voices heard. Both Jones and Pearson were expelled from the Tennessee legislature last week (Pearson has since been reinstated) as they sided with Nashville protestors to demand stricter gun laws and are leading the way for change, even in a heavily divided State. When asked about his participation in the protest and his support for the families and allies fighting for their right to live, Jones spoke about the failed democratic process in the state and affirmed that he was "standing for those young people ... many of whom can't even vote yet but all of whom are terrified by the continued trend of mass shootings plaguing our state and plaguing this nation."

As hard as it is to maintain hope when it's evident that gun lobbyists' interests are more important than the lives of our children, organizations such as March for Our Lives continue to put pressure on the government for concrete change, including the appointment of a Director of Gun Violence Prevention at the federal level, at least $1 billion in funding to combat gun violence, the rebuilding of research and data collection infrastructure, and the governmental support of community-based violence intervention programming. The responsibility should not be in the hands of the youngest members of society, but their activism and strength are a force to be reckoned with.

Sources:

#Activism #gun_violence #Mass_Shooting

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