school shooting

I still remember my first lockdown drill. I was in Mrs. Ibarra’s classroom in the blue wing of my elementary school. The blue on most days was a happy, comforting color, but that day in the dark it felt more sinister and scary. My classmates and I huddled silently in the corner as Mrs. Ibarra piled a mound of desks in front of the door. Earlier that day, she told us that in the event of a real shooting, we were to do everything we could to protect ourselves. She pointed out the window at the undeveloped plot of land behind our school — a wavy wheat field typical of Kansas summers.

On May 24, 2022, an 18-year-old shot and killed 19 elementary school children, two teachers and wounded 17 others in Uvalde, Texas.

In March 24, 2018, Emma Gonzalez, a survivor of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., closes her eyes and cries as she stands silently at the podium for the amount of time it took the Parkland shooter to go on his killing spree. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

In this image made from video, showing the scene as emergency services load an injured person onto a truck, in Kerch, Crimea, Wednesday Oct. 17, 2018. An explosive device has killed several people and injured at least 50 others at a vocational college in Crimea Wednesday in what Russian officials have called a possible terrorist attack. (Kerch FM News via AP) KERCH.FM LOGO CANNOT BE OBSCURED

Noah King, 9, of Belmont, Mass., center, steps on stage to greet Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students, from the left, Emma Gonzalez, David Hogg, Cameron Kasky, Alex Wind, and Matt Deitsch, during a panel discussion about guns, Tuesday, March 20, 2018, at Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics, in Cambridge, Mass. The Feb. 14, 2018 attack in Florida killed 17 people, 14 of them students. The students have become vocal advocates for stricter gun laws. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Jason Darnall, assistant county attorney for Marshall County, left, makes a statement to the media following a court hearing of the suspected gunman in Tuesday's shooting at Marshall County High School at the Marshall County Judicial Facility in Benton, Ky., Thursday, Jan. 25, 2018. Darnall said he can't comment on what happens inside juvenile court, where the teenager's identity and details of the crime remain cloaked in secrecy. But he reiterated that the state wants to try the teenager as an adult. (Ryan Hermens/The Paducah Sun via AP)

Gary Giles (center) speaks about the stabbing at Mountain View High School this morning at a press conference with Kimberly Bird (right) and Ned Jackson (left). (Camilla Stimpson)