Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice messaging system. Please leave a message after the beep. Beep.

Hey mom. I wanted to let you know that I love you—and I always will.

Beep.

Hidden behind a file cabinet pressed up against a fan while sitting in a fetal position, tuning in to the police scanner. This is the life of a student. 

Silently crying in a dimmed classroom, trying to remain unheard; just another Tuesday.

Walking up and down the halls once painted red by a gun; casual Friday. 

The United States Constitution states that the national militia has the right to bear arms. This is interpreted as people having the right to bear arms, but don’t the people—students, have a right to safety? If we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, a person with a gun’s rights shouldn’t supersede ours. 

States have passed gun safety laws to curb gun violence, but these laws wouldn’t be needed if it weren’t for the root: guns. There were 327 documented school shootings in 2021-2022, 188 of them including injuries to students or staff, and of those, 57 resulted in death; the Second Amendment still stands. 

The lives lost to gun violence do not equate to any sentence served by the court. Society’s interpretation of the Second Amendment reminds the people that a piece of metal is valued more than their existence. Second Constitutional right—what is a right if the right to bear arms unleashes the right to deprive a mother of their child, to foster a society where school shootings are normalized? 

I woke up on January 24, not knowing that later that day, I’d send my mom what I thought would be my last message. Hiding in the corner with my headphones on, trying to hear every word the officers said through the police scanner, holding back tears in front of my classmates, wondering if this was how my last minutes would be spent; I felt my life flash before me all in a cramped corner down in E101.

To live the life of a student means to have a modified school shooter mode on their phone to silence all notifications and calls. Students must now be aware that their lives can be ended not because of something that’s out of their control but because of a deadly piece of metal protected under the law. Today and for as long as the Second Amendment stands, being a student means possibly taking one last breath in a place where they should’ve been safe. 

How many more students must die for there to be change? Don’t wait until it’s your child or a loved one’s school to start caring.