I’m part of a generation that can’t remember a time when school lockdown drills weren’t the norm. We were taught how to huddle in a cramped corner before learning how to spell. We learned how to evacuate in record times before mastering the times tables. We learned how to fear before we had even formed our identities. What was once a system intended for education now inspires anxiety. Students worry less about tests and more about the next alarm, the next gunshot, the next headline.

Gun violence has been a pervasive influence throughout my youth and I’ve always questioned why guns were so widely available – especially in sacred places like schools. Why, in the nation that proclaims itself as the “greatest nation in the world”, do we allow for the proliferation of weapons that endanger our most vulnerable? As I dug deeper, I realized that gun violence isn’t just a cultural issue: it’s systemic, rooted in the Second Amendment. 

One incident exposing this constitutional grey area is the 1972 Supreme Court case Adams v. Williams. In Justice Douglass’ dissenting opinion, he notes never guaranteed the right to bear arms for civilians; it only referred to a “well regulated militia.” He posits, “there is no reason why all pistols should not be barred to everyone except the police.” Given that pistols are the most commonly used weapon in homicide cases, why hasn’t a ban been implemented?

The dissenting opinion in Adams v. Williams prompted me to look into the legal precedent that precluded meaningful firearm bans. My research led me to District of Columbia vs. Heller, a landmark case which undermined upwards of two centuries of judicial decisions, ruling that an individual’s right to bear arms is unrelated to service in a militia. This case marked an unfortunate inflection point in the history of gun usage in America. Since the decision, gun-related homicides have almost doubled, firearm regulations have become near impossible to impose, and school shootings have shot up precipitously.Meanwhile, countries like Japan and the United Kingdom, who have near-total handgun bans, have fewer than 50 firearm-related incidents per year. In contrast, the aggrandizing of the Second Amendment has cost thousands of lives. It’s time that we stop treating the Second Amendment as a tenent of the American identity and start recognizing what it has become: a legal excuse for inaction and a root cause behind mass deaths. The Founding Fathers could not have envisioned a nation where owning a weapon outweighs the right to live. They did not envision children learning militaristic drills before their ABCs. Years of unprecedented shootings have left my generation at a crossroads: accept the status quo or fight for change. As the leaders of tomorrow, we have the power to effectuate change through our voice. Heller is evidence that the interpretation of the Second Amendment is amenable. Let’s use our collective power to push for legislative change, so the generation of tomorrow won’t have to endure the same unspeakable horrors. But hey, it’s just a thought!