Run. Hide. Fight. 

This is what teachers across the country are expected to teach their students, a lesson that not one of them wants to see in the curriculum—how to survive in the event of an active school shooting. 

When I search “What are the three steps in an active school shooting scenario,” there are about 54,300,000 results, each one coming to the same conclusion that teachers and their students should either run, hide or fight. However, I’m more concerned about the fact that question is something that requires 54 million answers.

On March 27, 2023, six people were killed in a shooting at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee. The victims were, as listed: nine-year-olds Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney. Cynthia Peak, a 61-year-old substitute teacher, Mike Hill, a 61-year-old custodian and 60-year-old Katherine Koonce, the head of the school itself. 

News of school shootings spread like wildfire throughout every social media platform, mainstream news outlets and, especially, the news local to the incident. But, despite the overwhelming awareness and mourning we’ll witness for a week after, it keeps happening again and again. 

The reason for this is simple, avoidable and obvious, yet, the people in charge of the country continue to beat around the bush. The reason for the absurd nmber of school shootings is the legal purchases of firearms. Many Americans can buy a gun in less than an hour. In other countries, this process could take up to months. Let alone the fact that one-third of Americans purchased a gun with no background check, and the federal law doesn’t require one when someone is buying from a private seller. In the United States, a person at the age of merely 18, can buy a gun and only go through only two steps—the second step being: “Enjoy the gun you just purchased.”

The problem lies within the hands of parents. The Parkland school shooter, Nikolas Cruz, was given permission to buy guns by his own mother. The Michigan Oxford High School shooter, Ethan Crumbley, only 16 years old, gave his father money so he could buy him a gun. 

Shooters aren’t just current students, either. In fact, most shooters recently have been unaffiliated with the school or a former student.  About half of school shootings, were committed by these former students, in a spiteful rage, that remains mostly unknown. There are more shooters in their twenties rather than their tweens, which has changed since the shootings pre-2000s. 

There are hundreds of accounts of violent kids who come from violent homes. These drastic and devastating shootings are merely consequences of America’s blatant neglect for its people, and the countless struggles that lead to disaster. The government is so keen on making sure women have children by making a mockery of abortion laws, but cannot create a country where those same children feel safe in school. 

According to PACER Center, 49.8 percent of teenagers experience a form of bullying inside school. Whether a student acts on these attacks or not, the amount of hastiness in school is out of control. It makes you think: “How different would it be if people treated each other with some respect?” In fact, would we even need to be having this conversation at all then? 

It’s even common for a shooter to show signs of violence weeks before an attack, some were so obvious that looking back on evidence is spine-chilling. In 1999, the Columbine shooting shook the core of America, making it the first and most significant school shooting to date. In a class photo taken just weeks before the attack, the two shooters Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are seen in the top left corner, gesturing pointing guns towards the camera. 

I go to school every week, from the end of August to the beginning of June—as most of us do. There are moments, maybe just once or twice, that I felt like I needed to mentally prepare myself for how to react in a situation where my school, a supposed place of comfort, got shot up. Nevermind how safe our school is or could be, gun violence in America is becoming an epidemic that even the safest of schools still have every right to worry about. Because at the end of the day, if someone as sick as that wanted to inflict harm, they would find any way possible to. 

Every day we wake up, we’ll take something for granted—it’s human nature, it’s who we are. But, I’d rather apologize for all the times I took my parents for granted in person, than over the phone, on top of the toilet in my school’s bathroom, with only the faint sound of gunshots down the hall to keep me company.