Another school shooting has rocked America as innocent students were slaughtered on Dec. 13, 2025, at Brown University. As a country, we are grieving the loss of these bright pupils. As a country, we are grieving for the hundreds of children who have lost their lives in similar nightmares, and as a country, we must prepare to grieve for the next round of killings that have become the norm. The incompetence of every politician who refuses any true gun regulation is put on display after these mass casualty events.
It has become almost satirical that politicians’ only solution to murder is giving “thoughts and prayers” to the victims. Thoughts and prayers have not saved one child in America from being brutally shot in their classrooms. Thoughts and prayers have not passed one piece of legislation that meaningfully regulates guns. Thoughts and prayers have failed every American student who has been forced to endure the horror that is a school shooting.
As a child who grew up in Connecticut, I still remember when my friend told me what she had overheard about the Sandy Hook school shooting. At five years old, I simply didn’t believe her; I insisted that she must have heard her parents talking about a TV show or a movie. There was no possible way that that kind of thing could happen at a school, that it could happen to kids only a few years older than me. But I was wrong. As I grew older, at every age, I heard of another school shooting that killed children just like me. Each time I heard of these horrors, I couldn’t help but ask why our government had done nothing.
It feels like we are screaming into the void as we beg the only people who can do anything to solve this problem to even care. How has America followed this path, where we as citizens can accept that young children run the risk of getting a bullet in their bodies while they simply try to learn their ABCs? We’ve been forced to accept that the only legislation Congress can pass is that which gives tax cuts to the rich but ignores the toddlers who will never get to go to their high school graduation. The college students who will never get their degree. Our country has devolved into a place where we must accept the cruelty that our government serves to us. It is absurd that the people who can pass legislation, amendments, or anything that could change this path of slaughter that we are currently on, only give their prayers.
I am angry. I am angry that our government has failed us, but I am also angry for the children who were killed because they wanted to learn. Angry for the parents who will never see their child become the adult they always dreamed of them as. Angry for the teachers who have been forced to take on a new role as bodyguards in their classroom, having to accept that they might have to one day put their lives on the line to protect their students.
The Constitution states that Americans have a right to bear arms. I do not care. I wonder how the founding fathers would feel if they knew that their amendment, meant to allow for a citizen uprising against tyranny, was being used by authoritarians in our government to prevent any type of legislation that could save countless lives.
English columnist Dan Hodges said in 2015, “Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over,” and he was right. The moment that any American decided that the deaths of children were acceptable, we had already failed. How is the most powerful country on Earth failing at stopping murder in classrooms?
In many ways, this article is my own personal form of thoughts and prayers: putting words that will have no meaningful effect on gun violence in America onto a page to try to come to terms with what is happening. Yet, it seems the only thing I can do is voice my frustrations in hopes that others see they’re not alone when they feel like slamming their head into a wall every time a politician does nothing. Donald Trump himself was grazed with a bullet this summer at one of his rallies, and immediately his security was upped, and additional personnel were tasked with protecting him; Mr. President, what are the schoolchildren of America supposed to do without such luxury of security?
Hundreds of children lie dead, and we have accepted that in the future, more will join them, because Americans have lost any hope that we can fix this issue. This issue is not inevitable. We are the only developed country in the world that has it. Do not let them try to convince you that America is uniquely unable to attack this problem. The only unique thing about America is that our politicians have tricked us into thinking the only power they have is thoughts and prayers. How many more American children must die before politicians look down and see that their hands are seeped in blood? Children are dead, and prayer will not bring them back.
America is the supposed place where change is possible. For legislation to pass, it takes 218 members of the House of Representatives, 60 senators, the stroke of a pen from 1 person in the White House, and, if challenged in court, the agreement of 5 supreme court justices that the law is constitutional. To get any meaningful legislation passed, there must only be 283 officials who look at the carnage and say this has gone on for too long. It has been seen how incredibly difficult it is to convince those 283 people that fighting for American children not to die in classrooms is a worthy cause, but one day, I know we will prevail in convincing them.
