(Editor’s note: Delaney Peck is the Sports Editor of The Saber.  Any opinions expressed are not necessarily those of The Saber staff.)

 ¨Never again¨ again and again and again…

Last year I met these kids from Canada who were my age. We talked about the differences in our schools: I asked if they were big on football (they weren’t), and they asked if we had varsity jackets. Eventually, I brought up how we have metal detectors. They were completely and utterly shocked. I didn’t quite understand. Metal detectors are my normal. But it wasn’t always. If you were to tell me when I was in elementary school that I would need to go through metal detectors every morning, I would ask why. Now I understand. 

417.

The number of school shootings since 1999. On Sept. 4, 2024, at Apalachee High School in Georgia, four people – two teachers, and two students – were killed. Nine more were injured by 14-year-old Colt Gray. Gray was previously under investigation by the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office and put on the FBI watch list after a school shooting threat on social media app Discord. Gray’s father, Colin Gray, assured law enforcement that his son was supervised around weaponry at home and did not have access to them. Later, in Dec. 2023, Gray’s father purchased his son an AR-15-style rifle as a holiday gift. It baffles me that a father gave his son, who was already being investigated, an automatic weapon. He apparently saw no problem with this.. Fast forward nine months, and that Christmas present was used to slaughter Gray’s classmates and teachers. 

¨Never again¨ everyone is saying. “Never again” is what we always say. 

Since 1966, 28% of mass shootings have used assault weapons. In the past three years, 59% of mass shootings used assault weapons. The Second Amendment grants US citizens the right to bear arms for protection. Unless an entire army is at your door, you don’t need an assault rifle.

You can hunt and shoot skeet with guns and never need an assault rifle. If I were 18 right now, I could walk into a weapons store and purchase a gun. No special fanfare, a few background checks, and that’s it. That’s how easy it is to legally buy a gun. They would run a quick background check that looks for criminal, substance abuse, and mental health records that COULD prohibit me from owning a gun. The World Health Organization estimates that around two-thirds of mental illnesses go untreated. I think we can all agree that treating and identifying mental health issues has never been a priority of the American government. With so many mental health issues going untreated, this means there’s a lack of documentation. You can say you won’t give weapons to people with mental health issues, but what about the ones you aren’t aware of? Even if a person’s mental health issues make it difficult to buy a gun legally, they can get a gun illegally. Most of the people arrested with illegal weapons say it was easy to obtain the illicit weapons.

Gun violence as a whole could be drastically decreased if guns were stored more securely. A mentally disturbed child at school could be just another kid. Or they could be the next kid on the news for shooting up their school. Just because their parents didn’t keep the gun locked up. Many firearm owners do not safely store weapons at home – even when it is loaded. Even when children are in the house. One tactic that could be used to manage mass shootings and gun violence could be a law enforcing the safe storage of weapons. Hopefully, banning assault rifles and having more in-depth background and mental health screenings will follow. However, despite a constant call to do so, a ban on assault weapons is nowhere in sight.

Every time a school shooting happens we say ¨never again.¨ It happens again. It will keep happening again and again and again. Guns are too easy to secure. After 9/11,  the government made changes to make sure it won’t happen again. Why aren’t they doing the same for the absurd amount of school shootings? Do the countless lives, the countless children, lost to the violence not matter?

The S.C. Board of Education recently approved a ban, not on assault weapons, but phones.

Why is S.C. so eager to ban phones but not assault weapons? Why do governments have no problem establishing phone bans but can’t seem to make laws on safely storing guns? Some states have even created phone pouches, in which your phone remains locked during the school day. I fear the society we live in is more focused on technology than the lives of the people using it. A student at Apalachee High School texted their mother during the shooting. In the message, the student told their mother they heard gunshots and they were in a hard lockdown. Minutes later the student sent just three words, ¨I love you.¨ I understand the phone bans. However, I do not agree with any ban that would separate children from their parents during an emergency. Not when said emergency is a very real possibility, faced by every single student in the American school system, every day. 

 Throughout my four years at RNE, there have been multiple occurrences where a gun has been brought to school. There’s never been a shooting, but there very easily could’ve been. Last year there was a gun that got through the metal detectors. Metal detectors are made to stop incidents like that from happening. We have SROs on campus, but what if they are on the other side of the school, and another gun gets through the metal detectors? That one minute it takes to get to a shooter in a room full of kids would be a catastrophe. In a single minute, an assault rifle can fire up to 100 rounds. Even with SROs on campus and the metal detectors, what stops students from the constant fear that all these lockdown drills we practice will soon be the real thing? What’s to stop kids from wondering if they are next? What’s to stop the students from wondering if they are going to be the next school we say ¨never again¨ about?

¨Never again¨

¨Never again¨

¨Never again¨

At some point, America as a country has to stop just saying ¨never again¨ and actually make a change. No child should die in the place where they are supposed to grow and be safe.

This story was originally published on The Saber on September 13, 2024.