The first mass shooting I remember is Sandy Hook in 2012. I was in middle school then, and I could tell something was wrong when I walked downstairs and saw my parents watching the news while it was still light out.
During my first year of high school, I remember my math teacher telling us what to do if there was a gunman in the building. If you can’t run, she said, use your desk as a shield.
I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard about the shooting at UNC Charlotte in 2019. In the library of my own university, just two hours away, I suddenly felt incredibly vulnerable. I repositioned myself so I could keep one eye on the entrance — just in case.
Then it happened in my hometown, when five people died in Raleigh’s Hedingham community last October. They were shot in the city I grew up in, where my family still lives, on a greenway I’m used to walking on.
No matter where it happens, though, it always feels closer than we’d like. It happens in cities and towns that look like ours, in places that are familiar to all of us — the grocery store, the movie theater, a place of worship, a concert, a parade, a nightclub.
It is always in the back of my mind, and I rarely find myself able to fully relax in public. When I expressed this sentiment on Twitter this week, I was sadly unsurprised by how much it resonated with others, especially those who are close to my age.
My peers and I have grown up in a culture of gun violence, and we are often referred to as the “school shooting generation.” Most of us can hardly remember a time when these tragedies weren’t commonplace. Gun violence prevention is consistently a top priority for Gen Z voters, and it has driven many young people to advocate for change and even run for political office.
Maxwell Frost, who made history recently as the first Gen Z member of Congress, is a gun violence survivor himself. He started organizing to end gun violence at age 15, after Sandy Hook. March for Our Lives was formed in the wake of the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. It became one of the biggest youth protests since the Vietnam War.
Mass shootings have defined our generation, but we are not the only ones who live with this fear. Nearly half of Americans are worried about themselves or a family member becoming a victim of a mass shooting, according to a 2019 Gallup poll. A WRAL News poll released in October found that nearly half of North Carolinians worry about it, too.
The American Psychological Association reported in 2019 that a third of U.S. adults said the fear of mass shootings stops them from going to certain places and events, and 79% said mass shootings are a source of stress in their lives. Many mass shootings have been motivated by racism and hate, which has put marginalized communities on especially high alert.
Statistically speaking, the odds of me or someone I love dying in a mass shooting are not high, especially compared to everything else that’s much more likely to kill us. But they are far higher than they should be, and the number of preventable tragedies that occur every year continues to grow. In the first three weeks of 2023, there have already been 40 mass shootings across the country — including the back-to-back shootings that killed 19 people in three days in California.
A friend of mine doesn’t like going to places with only one visible exit. A professor who taught me in college told me he now closes and locks the door every time class begins. People who responded to me on Twitter said they are constantly identifying escape routes when they go out in public. Others said they’ve taken up running or study on the third floor of their campus center, where it feels safer.
Just in case.
It never had to be this way.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Paige Masten is an opinion writer for the Charlotte Observer and McClatchy’s North Carolina opinion team
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