I wonder if the suits in office who have the ability to legislate gun control policy have ever experienced what a 21st-century classroom feels like.

I wonder if they’ve ever had to practice cramming themselves into the darkest corners of a classroom, as far away as possible from the door. I wonder if they’ve ever heard the abrupt pop of a chip bag in the cafeteria and immediately felt the impulse to take cover. I wonder if they know what a sanctuary is or if they sit coldly in their offices, waiting for another mass shooting to be written off as an inevitable tragedy.

Growing up Catholic, I attended a small academy that functioned as both a school and a church. Every Wednesday morning, we’d gather and go to church together. Our kindergarten class sat in the pews near the door. I remembered how my legs floated above the ground, lightly brushing the kneelers.

The preschoolers sat near the front, directly facing the altar. In this arrangement, we were the older, more responsible kids. We were a part of a community that was a safe haven from multiplication and division back in our classroom.

Today, I don’t miss the childlike purity of those years. I lived through those experiences and can revisit, unwrap and reminisce over those memories. 

Today, my story would be called a success — that a kindergartener made it through her K-12 journey without facing gun violence. This was not a guaranteed outcome — that I was not targeted in my own safe spaces of worship and wisdom. Realistically, in Texas, it could have been any of us — not just me, but many others, too

For the children at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, it was they who were targeted.

On Aug. 27, those children were impacted by a sickness that legislators nationwide — and those who voted them into office — failed to address every passing year. Since 2020, gun violence has become the leading cause of death for U.S. children and teens, surpassing motor vehicle-related incidents. On average, 3,500 children die each year due to gun violence, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

At Annunciation, 21 people — most of them children who were attending mass that Wednesday morning — were wounded. Many larger kids tried to shield smaller ones with their bodies. They were scraped and pierced with bullets as a gunman opened fire on the church. Two children were violently taken away from their loving families: Fletcher Merkel, 8, and Harper Moyski, 10. 

Harper’s family urges our leaders to proactively address the plague of gun violence in the country. “Change is possible, and it is necessary — so that Harper’s story does not become yet another in a long line of tragedies.” 

The sanctuary — that feeling of protection — was penetrated by bullets. The sanctuary, the place of authority, the establishment of the divine, the retreat from classroom desks, the refuge of the persecuted and the linking of arms are all threatened by the volume of gun violence in our country, demonstrated recently at Annunciation. This dissonance between the political and the spiritual is as frightening as it is telling.

Just like we are actively losing our third spaces for gathering and connection, we fail to address the roots of violence to our demise — the everlasting space that should still exist when our city halls, courtrooms and housing projects can no longer stabilize themselves in a fallible liberal democracy — one which has become grounds for reproducing mass shootings. The sanctuary announces itself as a place where everyone is welcome — that’s why we desperately need it. 

The problem with mass shootings is that the impetus of not only faith, but of life, is threatened by them. We need to create a society that permits our children to grow beyond a country whose leading cause of death is gun violence. Thus, we must take action to prevent systematic gun violence from being produced ever again. 

For instance, the parents of children who suffered and died in the Uvalde Shooting are active gun control advocates. It is the National Rifle Association, or NRA, that consistently lambasts any attempts to regulate firearms. That is the shared uphill battle — resisting, for example, the NRA’s invasive influence in policy — that can help us begin to save lives. 

For example, gun control laws don’t contradict the Second Amendment — the U.S. has many. Gun control laws should make it harder for crazed individuals to obtain firearms quickly. That’s what positive change looks like.

It’s not just the shooters themselves, either. Great strides in mass shooting prevention could be made by legislating oversight for not only those who purchase guns, but also the companies that sell them — the ones who lobby the government to keep their billion-dollar industry alive. 

We owe it to our inner child who trembled at the thought of being trapped in a bathroom stall, not able to figure out a sound escape plan because the entire concept of mass shootings exists outside of the realms of logic and common sense. Our classrooms are built for learning, yet our politicians treat it as a lockdown shelter — revealing their failure to address the root of the issue.

It’s an epidemic of not solely mental disorder, but one of collective desensitization to violence and disregard for human life. Our failure to be proactive since the Sandy Hook Shooting has fashioned a long line of tragedies. If we don’t act, it will not stop.

Today, we must put our values in the line of fire. We should strive for our values to be strong enough to protect us and others — to create establishments of care. At the same time, Aggies can mourn, pray and carry the sacred memories of our loved ones. Both action — good works — and prayer resonate with each other to spur genuine change. They are not opposites.

This is not just a responsibility exclusive to Catholics who can rebuild themselves after violence, but an obligation to resist a trauma that has taken control of everyone’s lives.

Sidney Uy is a philosophy junior and opinion writer for The Battalion.