Jaime Hyde, a 31-year-old mother from Nebraska, shared a heartbreaking message on TikTok that quickly went viral: “I take a picture of my son every day before school—just in case there’s a shooting, so I’ll know what he wore if he doesn’t come home.”
As she adds a bulletproof insert to his backpack, she’s left wondering why lawmakers are more focused on defending the Second Amendment than protecting innocent children like her second grader. Unfortunately, Hyde’s story is not unique, as gun violence continues to ravage America’s schools.
The numbers are staggering. According to the K-12 School Shooting Database, 300 school shootings have occurred in the U.S. this year alone, as of Nov. 15. In 2023 alone, there were 349 school shootings and over 450 mass shootings, resulting in nearly 450 deaths and almost 2,000 injuries according to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA). This unrelenting wave of violence has become all too familiar, and lives continue to be senselessly lost every day. Yet, somehow, the laws remain unchanged.
According to the most recent report by the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey (2018), the United States, with less than 5% of the world’s population, has 46% of the world’s civilian-owned guns.
But the number of guns owned isn’t necessarily the root cause—it’s largely the legislation surrounding them.
While America’s gun violence epidemic rages on, other countries have taken decisive action to protect their citizens. After the 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia, Canada banned over 1,500 military-style assault weapons and enacted sweeping gun reforms. In stark contrast, after the 1999 Columbine shooting in Colorado, U.S. lawmakers weakened gun laws. The federal assault weapons ban expired, and the gun industry gained near-immunity from lawsuits, leaving manufacturers unaccountable for the devastation caused by their products.
As a result, mass shootings in the U.S. have become disturbingly regular. According to CNN, the pace of gun violence escalated during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the number of mass shootings jumping from 414 in 2019 to 611 in 2020. In 2021, the U.S. recorded its worst year for mass shootings in modern history, with 689 incidents. In 2023, the country saw 656 mass shootings, ranking as the second-worst year on record.
But a nation with triple-digit shootings every year hasn’t always been the case. CBS News reports that after the 1999 massacre, states enacted lockdown and active shooter drills, according to a report from the Federal School Safety Commission. As of 2024, about 95% of public schools in the U.S. practiced active shooter or lockdown drills in the 2015-2016 academic year, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, with more than 40 states requiring such drills.
According to NBC News, “Over the past two decades, the drills have ramped up in intensity — with some schools going so far as to use fake blood and fire blanks at students. A drill at an Indiana school prompted outrage when teachers were shot execution-style with pellet guns, leaving them injured.”
While school drills have existed for decades—originating with “duck-and-cover” drills during the Cold War—the rise of active shooter drills over the past 20 years is a disturbing sign of just how much gun violence has infiltrated schools.
Originally a recreational hunting term, “active shooter” became part of law enforcement’s vocabulary after Columbine. The general public, including schools, started using the term several years later, according to Northeastern University criminologist James Alan Fox. At first, schools simply called the exercises “Columbine drills,” he said.
As a society, we are choosing to live in constant fear of being gunned down where we stand by not taking a stand against politicians who care more about profit than people’s lives. Every day that lawmakers fail to pass sensible gun laws, more lives are at risk.
We wouldn’t have to go into these changes blindly either, as there is evidence that these potential laws create positive change.
Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence reports, “After Connecticut passed its licensing law, its gun homicide rate dropped by 28%, and its gun homicide rate dropped by 33%. States with in-person application or fingerprinting requirements have 56% fewer fatal mass shootings.”
Scientific American states that when Missouri repealed its permit law, gun-related killings increased by 25 percent.
Laws need to be changed to heavily restrict access to guns and there is tangible proof that these restrictions work.
Historically, Democrats have been the party most associated with pro-gun control policies, but in recent years, many have shifted away from that stance. The result is that citizens are left in limbo, with little political will to address the problem.
We cannot afford to wait for another tragedy. Every day we delay, more lives are at risk. It’s time to put people before weapons. Contact your representatives today and demand stronger gun control — for the safety of today’s generation and those to come.
