Aaditi Lele reported on the Covenant School shooting for The Vanderbilt Hustler.
The helicopters circle overhead and my chest tightens. Sirens ring closer and closer, my uneasiness amplifying the shrill panic. There is no time to freeze. No time for the imminent anxiety attack. Breathe. I whip out my phone, tightening my grip, and type, “BREAKING: Shooting reported at Covenant School…”.
“Write first, feel later,” we mutter, updating headlines every few minutes. The sirens hush. Moments later, we hear of the deaths. First, there are three dead, then five, then six. My stomach drops. We are not reporting on numbers, these are real people, including real children. Later that day, I stare off at the silhouette of Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital from my dorm room window and pray there are no new headlines, no new numbers.
When I first became a student journalist, I never anticipated having to cover a school shooting. In hindsight, I may have been naive.
In 2022 alone, there were 177 instances of gunfire on school grounds in the US, according to Everytown for Gun Safety. That is almost as many shootings as there are instructional days in a school year. More of these mass shootings take place in the South than in any other region of the country, and relaxed gun laws are correlated with higher rates of mass shootings. When becoming subject to gun violence seems like a statistical inevitability, it’s no surprise we live in constant fear.
If three nine-year-olds walked into school last week and never left, then anyone could be next.
Our entire lives have been colored by constant, back-of-mind anxiety about gun violence. A 2018 Pew Research Center poll found that a majority of US teens fear a shooting could happen at their school and parents share those concerns. The regularity of these shootings creates a desensitizing backdrop of violence for our generation, eroding any shred of safety or security. The American Psychological Association found that mass shootings beget cycles of distress with a cascade of collective trauma. These persistent anxieties are unyielding. Each day, on the walk from my dorm at Vanderbilt University to my classes, I walk through Vanderbilt University Medical Center, flinching and freezing at the sound of sirens.
We are kids reporting on the deaths of kids. Why should I be reporting on young lives lost to gun violence, knowing my classroom or campus could be next?
For young people like me, the dormant dread of gun violence is constantly triggered. Just a few years ago, threats reported to my own high school resulted in additional police presence. How could I be expected to just continue about my day, seeing police officers lining the exits and hallways? To put my head down and study or take an exam? Last fall, that same unshakable feeling resurfaced when I covered a rally against gender-affirming care in Tennessee. My heart dropped as I watched armed Proud Boys chanting against the existence of my friends and classmates. I remembered what our teachers and administrators had taught us over a decade of armed shooter drills: Make yourself small. Be calm. Be quiet. Hide.
When I was in 5th grade, one teacher compared our thick textbooks to armor. They may not be bulletproof, he had said, but throw them at the shooters to knock down their guns or use them to cover your heads. No 11-year-old should have to think about that. Textbooks should be used solely as tools for learning, not as shields.
While children grapple with a chronic fear of gun violence, many lawmakers' focus on the issue is fleeting and artificial. Last year, firearms became the leading cause of death among children in the United States, making us the only country among its peers where that’s the case. That this fact alone did not spark immediate legislative reform and immediate action, is a reflection of our leaders’ lack of political will to protect us.
Since the shooting in Nashville, legislators in Tennessee have made it explicitly clear that they intend to take no action. “We’re not gonna fix it,” Rep. Tim Burchett told reporters. House Republicans in Tennessee, began proceedings to expel three Democratic lawmakers for “disorderly behavior” after they led protest chants for gun reform in the gallery of the State Capitol building. Former Tennessee senator and then senate majority leader Bill Frist supported the expiration of the federal assault weapons ban in 2004, arguing that the “will of the people” was consistent with letting it expire.
Our leaders’ embrace of the status quo is no longer veiled behind calls for “thoughts and prayers.” It is unmistakable: Adherence to business as usual, to putting the gun lobby’s interests ahead of the safety of children, begets more violence. Inaction is murder.
Reporting on the Covenant shooting was haunting and I’m left with one sentence running through my mind: This should never have happened. By treating the death of children as anything but a crisis, this country normalizes senseless violence. Whether another child has to cower in a closet or whether another parent has to buy another bulletproof backpack, lies squarely in the hands of our lawmakers. When will it end?
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