#gunshooting

May 4th 2019 11:10 p.m. I was leaving prom. Half a school’s worth of teenagers were leaving a ballroom. My friends were leaving a ballroom.

Two streets away, a shooting took place. Two streets away, people were dying. Two streets away, somebody from my school witnessed deaths she never should have seen and didn’t go to class the next week.

All I have been able to think since then was what if that person knew about prom and when it ended? What if they had the thought of “There’s more people I can kill at that ballroom then this late night grocery store.”? What if they knew that half a school’s worth of children were gathered outside a ballroom waiting to go home?

They could have come there. It was less than five minutes away. More people could have died. 

People I know could have died.

I could have died.

Which is why I get frustrated when I see people walking around, and going in to restaurants with guns strapped to their backs for no reason other than because they can, and nobody knows whether they should call the police because they don’t know if it’s an actual threat or just a political statement.

Do these people have any idea how many people could have trauma from guns? Do they know how many people could just see a gun and have flashbacks to sitting in class or work and suddenly hearing gunshots and then seeing their classmates or coworkers drop dead right in front of them? Or back to when they were hiding away in a bathroom stall as they heard the screams of their peers fade away cause they were running for their lives as they were being picked off one by one?

When you see somebody walk in with a gun your first instinct is to call the police, but with people going around with a gun casually strapped to their back that instinct turns to doubt and by the time they realize it’s an active shooter someone will have already died and it’s too late.

A fire alarm gets set off and people are more willing to stay in class rather than get shot.

I’ve heard teachers during lock downs say that if somebody wants to get into the room, they’ll have to go through them. And they are so fucking serious about it. Teachers are willing to die for their students and I really wish that wasn’t a thing that had to happen. But it is. And for some people it did happen.

People are dying before they can even graduate high school.

I’m not saying take away all the guns, what I’m saying is find a better fucking way to control them.

May 4th 2019 11:10 p.m. me, and half a school’s worth a teenagers were leaving a ballroom after having the time of our lives.