Stunned by active shooter incident

By Ruby Sheaffer

Monroe

To the editor:

As a student at Monroe High School, I was taken aback by the active shooter situation at Mount Horeb Middle School last Wednesday. Like most, if not all, of my fellow students, this was the closest I came to an active shooter situation. I want to be as close to a situation like this as possible. Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of assuming we’ll be as close as ever.

Like most other high schools across the country, we regularly complete active shooter drills. We practice barricading a classroom, plan how to exit the building quickly and safely, and consider how to confront an attacker. There’s even a nice little acronym to remind yourself of what to do in this terrible situation – ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate). There is no reason that school shootings should be so common—that we spend our time not learning how to solve math equations or analyze literature, but rather how to fight for our lives.

I will be graduating at the end of this month along with the rest of the Class of 2024. A few times I was relieved that every day I would no longer be entering a building that could be the target of the next school shooting. I expressed this thought to one of my teachers the day of the Mount Horeb situation, and he responded that sometimes it feels like we’re all just waiting for an active shooter to happen. That no one is immune. That it’s not a matter of if, but when.

So please. Please act in the interest of our community, our students, our safety and our lives. I – and many of my colleagues both in this community, in the Mount Horeb community and across the country – implore you to take action. Thoughts and prayers are appreciated, but they do not bring about change. Don’t wait until it’s our school district, our students, our community. Call lawmakers and ask them to support gun reform. Talk to your friends and family to make sure firearms are safe. Volunteer for and support organizations that advocate for gun safety, reform and regulation. In November, vote for candidates who you believe will truly protect the safety of students and children. If we don’t act, we will continue to face a future where there could be a new parkland any day. Another Sandy Hook. Another Uvalde. Another Mount Horeb.