No one, especially do-nothing lawmakers, should forget how 17 people died at Stoneman Douglas | Opinion

Four years ago, I ran out of my debate class as I heard screams and loud bangs in the building next to me. I had no idea what was happening. But then I started receiving text messages and Snapchat videos of my friends and classmates lying on the ground with pools of blood around them. I realized that those loud bangs were gunshots, and that 17 of my friends, classmates and teachers were being murdered.

Even though four years have passed since that traumatic day, and I am now a sophomore at Yale University, there is not a moment that goes by that I am not reminded of what happened at my high school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, on Feb. 14, 2018.

Although I relive that day over and over in my head, I know that, for many people, Parkland was just another mass shooting in America. When we live in a country that too often leads the news with a school shooting, we become desensitized to what it means for kids to be murdered while learning in their classrooms. It is now commonplace to see the words “Oxford,” “Sandy Hook,” “Parkland,” etc. flash on our screens as these communities are added to the list of school shootings. We have normalized referring to a community by where a school shooting has taken place. And, with more than 200 incidents of gunfire at schools in 2021, resulting in almost 50 deaths, it has become easy to forget the lives behind the numbers. The people who died aren’t just statistics on the news. They are sons, daughters, students and educators with bright futures ahead of them.

Even worse, the majority of gun violence we see represents a fraction of the gun violence that occurs. Every day, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, 10 children and teens are shot and killed, and another 42 are shot and wounded. These shootings don’t make the headlines. The public doesn’t talk about it the next day. Lawmakers do not even send their “thoughts and prayers” tweets.

While I can forgive the general public for forgetting about the magnitude and frequency of gun violence, I will never forgive the lawmakers who forget about it. I will not forgive the lawmakers who sit idly by and choose politics over people’s lives. I will not forgive the lawmakers who prioritize profits over safety. I will not forgive the lawmakers, who are elected to keep us safe, who are elected to create change, but who let kids in their communities die from preventable gun violence. I will not forgive the lawmakers who promised Parkland survivors action, but never follow through. And I will never forgive the lawmakers who pretend, for their own political gain, that there is a binary choice between protecting the Second Amendment and keeping the public safe from gun violence. There shouldn’t be choice when it comes to keeping children alive.

There are various policies on each level of government that these lawmakers can pass that are supported by the majority of Americans. For example, 93% of Americans support strengthening background checks on the federal level; more than 70% of Americans support passing red-flag laws on the state level, which remove guns temporarily from people who are deemed a danger to themselves or others; and an overwhelming amount of Americans support passing secure-storage policies on the local level. All of these policies are proven to prevent gun violence — including school shootings.

So as I ask the question, “Will people remember?” I am not only asking the public to remember Parkland and the thousands of children who die from gun violence each year, I am specifically asking our elected officials to remember these shootings. They need to remember the lives behind the statistics. They need to remember the trauma that affects their communities long after shootings happen. And they need to remember that they are elected to keep their constituents safe.

Now is the time for lawmakers to remember the lives lost to gun violence each year and honor these Americans with policy action.

Sari Kaufman is a volunteer leader with Students Demand Action and a member of the Everytown Survivor Network who survived the mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018.

This story was originally published February 14, 2022 at 9:27 AM.