‘I Want to Be Someone Who Speaks Up About Gun Violence Prevention’

Note: This blog is written by a survivor of gun violence and contains references to being threatened with a firearm. Please take care while reading.

As a student in the United States, I’ve always known the danger of gun violence.

I remember walking into my house after school on a December day in 2012. My mother was crying and thanking God that I was okay. As the evening unfolded, I was utterly shocked and confused as we listened to news reports stating that 20 children and 6 staff members had been shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

At the same time, I was growing up in a place where gun violence was already woven into everyday life—something we heard about through word of mouth because it rarely made the headlines. In many ways, it felt strange to realize how accustomed we had become to that reality.

My years in school continued to be marked by devastating shootings at schools, malls, and houses of worship, and back home in Jacksonville, nearby incidents of gun violence even prompted my school to go into lockdown. And after gun violence directly impacted my family while at a movie theater, I knew I had to do more to get involved in the gun violence prevention space.

Read the rest of this blog on Students Demand Action: https://studentsdemandaction.org/teen-dating-violence-let-us-see-a-better-tomorrow-survivor/