Youth activists react after shot fired at school in Rio Rancho

Twelve hours after Sophia Lussiez and about 50 other Santa Fe students lay in silence on the Rotunda floor to advocate for gun control legislation at the Capitol, the nightmare began again.

A shot was fired inside Cleveland High School in Rio Rancho.

No one was injured, but for Lussiez, relief was followed by resignation: It had happened again.

“If anything, this morning was a reminder for the representatives that this issue is serious,” said Lussiez, a senior at Desert Academy in Santa Fe. “For me and

my peers, we already know what it is like to go to school every day and have this constant fear of a shooter.”

In the minds of young grassroots activists who have spent recent weeks pushing their cause at the state Capitol, the incident in Rio Rancho is the latest reminder of both the widespread impact of gun violence on New Mexico’s kids — and the need for immediate action.

In Santa Fe, as in the rest of the country, the threat of firearms on campus has changed the way students, parents and school administrators approach the school day.

“It saddens me that we have these tragedies, because they really impact how kids feel about being in school,” Santa Fe Public Schools Superintendent Veronica García said. “These should be carefree years where they are enjoying learning and growing socially and emotionally. That they now have to worry about these events impacts their focus in school, and that really saddens me.”

Some students, including members of a local group called Student Advocacy Union, have made their presence known during the 2019 legislative session.

On Tuesday, New Mexico School for the Arts senior Maki Omori and Lussiez sat alongside Rep. Linda Trujillo, D-Santa Fe, to testify in front of the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee in support of House Bill 130. That bill would alter the state’s definition of a neglected child to include those whose parents and guardians fail to take “reasonable action to secure the firearm against access by the child.”

Statistics show youth in New Mexico are killed by firearms at a higher rate than the national average.

According to the latest data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 31 New Mexicans between the ages of 10 and 19 were killed by firearms in 2017 at a rate of 11.13 per 100,000 people. Texas had a rate of 7.96 per 100,000 for the same age group. Nationally, the rate was 7.76 per 100,000.

The Washington Post in August reported that in 105 school shootings since 1999 in which the weapon’s source was identified, 80 percent of shooters used guns taken from their home or from the home a relative or friend.

HB 130 would create criminal penalties for such gun owners who own a weapon used in a shooting.

“What happened this morning at Rio Rancho, that’s a poster child for why we need HB 130,” said Miranda Viscoli, co-president of the nonprofit New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence. “Whoever owns that gun should be held responsible.”

In Rio Rancho, police said the 16-year-old shooting suspect fired one shot inside a hallway and left the weapon behind. The Albuquerque Journal reported the suspect’s name is Joshua Owen. He was arrested and charged with three counts of attempting to commit murder and carrying a deadly weapon on school grounds, police said.

The Rio Rancho school district canceled classes Thursday.

Student Advocacy Union is made up of high-schoolers from across Santa Fe.

The group’s first action was organizing a local version of the March for Our Lives — a highly publicized Washington, D.C., rally organized in April by survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla.

After laying in the Rotunda on Wednesday night during the socalled die-in, some Student Advocacy Union members stayed at the Capitol until almost midnight to watch the House pass HB 83, which would allow law enforcement to take firearms away from people who are considered an immediate threat to themselves or others.

For the student activists who are not yet old enough to vote, direct action is the best way to exorcise the stress caused by the threat of gun violence in their communities.

“Adults don’t drive to school every day with the fear of not driving home. They don’t spend their day thinking about who at school might be a potential shooter. They don’t have to plan an exit strategy from a classroom or deal with the terror of a lockdown drill because maybe this one isn’t a drill,” said Amea Lombardo, a Student Advocacy Union member and sophomore at the Academy for Technology and the Classics.

“For me, doing some kind of work that might make change is a way to say that I’m not just letting this happen. I want to do my part.”