There have been more than 300 school shootings so far in 2023an increase from last year, which itself saw a record high. Students are now expected to be prepared for the possibility of a shooting at any moment, often scanning for exits in each room they enter.
Karly Scholz worked in gun violence activism for six years before she experienced a school shooting at the University of Virginia in November, 2022. It was still just a shock to me, says Scholz, currently in her third year at UVA and a member of Project Unloadeds Youth Council. No amount of work, no amount of talking to victims, no amount of anything, really, I think, could prepare me and prepare anyone else for what had happened. Zoe Touray, a survivor of the Oxford High School Shooting in Michigan in November 2021, explained that the full gravity of what happened did not hit her immediately. In the aftermath, she said it felt like it was one of the most important things to try to get back to normal. Touray eventually realized that after a shooting, things arent necessarily gonna go back to normal, if there ever even was a normal. That realization typically marks the long process of grappling with the effects, both short- and long-term, of witnessing gun violence. Since then, Touray has become an activist, working with March for Our Lives and starting her own organization, SEE, Survivors Embracing Each Other.
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