On Valentine’s Day, America underwent a heartbreaking, dastardly tragedy—another school shooting. A gunman stormed the halls of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 and wounding 15 others.

The event has resparked the gun debate across the nation, further dividing a population that needs now more than ever to come together for the victims and witnesses of such a horrific occurrence.

Instead of taking a stance on one side of a divisive topic, we’re choosing to stand in solidarity with those who lost their lives far too young, those who lost them selflessly and those who had to endure another heinous event in U.S.
history.

While the horrid occurrence does call to question current gun policies, the importance does not lie in more or less control, but the lives lost and how to protect the youth of our nation moving forward.

It may be easier to discuss regulation, but with the frequency at which the topic is debated, it’s evident that the repetitive rhetoric is not bringing about the change we need. Instead of heating an already boiling over pot, why are we not trying to foster an open conversation?

This divide of our nation is only continuing the inaction. A conversation among both sides is necessary because there is one thing we can all agree upon: change is crucial.

This is no longer an issue about guns, but an issue about humanity. Lives are being lost and instead of mourning with victims’ families in their time of need it’s being used as a platform to discuss an already saturated topic.

This is not about us and the responses we believe the event warrants, but about those who lost everything and those who now have to carry the fear of that day with them everywhere they go including back into the school they were running out of.

It may seem natural for those of us not directly affected to want to discuss the device that caused these deaths, but remember these are people, people who thought they too were immune to school shootings. Among the group was even two NMU alums.
No one is immune to such atrocities and they will persist if we continue to be more angry over rights than people dying. We have to stop speaking from a completely reactionary state and start having a meaningful conversation with the opposing side. Change starts with being cohesive.