What’s changed?
ONE YEAR AFTER PARKLAND, FLA., HIGH SCHOOL MASSACRE,
Gunshots in the hallways. The screams of terrified students and teachers. And a teenager armed with a gun shooting 17 people dead. It has been a year since the senseless tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where then-19-year-old gunman Nikolas Cruz opened fire on his former students and teachers, killing 17.
A Business Insider report from late last year said there were more than 300 mass shootings in America in 2018.
A year after Parkland, what, if anything, has changed to ensure students are safe at their schools?
Following the shooting, many young students acted and made their voices heard in the March for Our Lives protest. Over 2 million people across America attended the march, advocating for gun control and safety in schools. The March for Our Lives protest was one of the largest youth-led protests in history.
Small steps were taken in response. Some states enacted stricter gun control laws, such as New York, and New Mexico legislators are working on a number of bills during the current legislative session.
In Santa Fe, both teachers and students said they maintain hope that change will come, and for the better.
“I honestly feel like there’s been a change,” said Capital High School freshman David Marquez. “I haven’t been hearing about school shootings lately, which is a good sign.”
But there were 18 reported school shootings following Parkland in 2018. Many were unheard of and some didn’t have a high enough death rate to be considered a mass shooting. So far in 2019, there have been no reported school shootings.
Santa Fe High School Advanced Placement language and journalism teacher Barbara Gerber has seen district leaders working to initiate safety measures. “We got these doorstops at [Santa Fe High School] that can instantly lock any door,” Gerber said. “It is an improvement since it’s better than barricading a door.”
In addition, the district began a much stricter visitor sign-in system that immediately runs a background check for any sex crime offenses.
Still, on a wide-open campus like Santa Fe High — which is slated for a partial redesign in the coming year to ensure all visitors go through the Administration Building — Marquez said he doesn’t see much happening to make things safer.
“I haven’t seen much done across my school that is quite obvious,” Marquez said. “I don’t think there have been many rule changes though, so we might just be getting lucky, to be honest.”
But some say relying on luck is a bad idea. “While we aren’t hearing much about school shootings nowadays, I still think it is important to control guns,” said Samantha Parker, a Santa Fe High School junior.
Even Gerber said that despite the new door locks, “I don’t think there has been enough action or policy changes to say that it’s improving.”
Second Amendment proponents and others continue to argue that guns are not the problem. They say states and schools need to do more to address mental and behavioral health problems, and that parents and adults have to do a better job of locking away firearms that might be in their homes.
“What we need is to get help programs for kids who could be threatening,” said Aidan Stephenson, a Desert Academy student. “While guns are a weapon of war, the Second Amendment was created for people to bear arms for protection. Kids that show characteristics of being dangerous need help and not for guns to be controlled. Also, if they do control guns, that would just make them more valuable, and I’m sure potential school shooters will find their way around it or just use even more dangerous weapons.”
Gerber agrees that more help is needed. “I do think schools can do more to identify kids who are in trouble or who could potentially strike out at others,” she said. “It isn’t possible with the current number of counselors or health care. We would need something totally different.”
Parker thinks safety measures have to go a long way beyond that.
“The only way to fully eliminate [mass shootings] from happening is to put controls on guns or at least to make them a lot harder to access for dangerous people.”
Lincoln Byrd is a sophomore at Santa Fe High School. Contact him at linbbyrd@ gmail.com.