Ebola has taken over the media and become the only thing high school students seem to be discussing in the halls and thinking about during class. However, while these same students are bringing out their bottles of hand sanitizer and glaring suspiciously at the kid in the front of the room who just coughed, a different type of killer threatens the halls of schools nation wide. To find proof of this killer we only have to glance back to this past October when four unsuspecting teenagers died from a school shooting at Marysville-Pilchuck High School in Wahington. But if anyone was expecting a big deal to be made from this awful act, they would be disappointed because as a society, not many people seem to care. Somehow school shootings have become almost irrelevant to the eyes of the general public, especially if the lives lost are not greater than some obscenely grotesque amount. They no longer make headlines or stir controversy; yet, they are still happening. Just when exactly did we let school shootings become as routine as seeing a car crash, something to divert our eyes from and move on?

According to everytown.org, a website dedicated to gun safety, a school shooting is defined as “when a firearm was discharged inside a school building or on school or campus grounds.” This same website calculates that in the past year alone there were 52 school shootings. Out of those 52 shootings, how many could the general population recall? One? Maybe two? Since the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012, we seem to have forgotten the significance and gravity of these events that happen all too often.

Granted, many schools have taken a giant leap in terms of school safety. There isn’t a school in Noblesville that can be entered without going through at least two secured doors first. In addition, new procedures to protect students from armed intruders have taken effect, like ALICE with the mission to barricade, evacuate or counter any intruding actions.

Still, these new precautions are not enough. If the number of school shootings is anywhere above zero, then we as a society should be worried, not pushing the story to a later time because it lacks the novelty of others. We at the Mill Stream believe that every school traumatized by shootings deserve to be noticed. The more society ignores the problem, the more it intertwines its way into our culture.

The Mill Stream wants all of society to recognize that we have a problem that is only growing.

No, we don’t have the magic answer that will instantly rid the U.S. of school shootings. However, we have to start somewhere. We need to ask ourselves the hard questions, like whose fault are these shootings? Is there something wrong with this generation of children that is promoting these occurrences? It is through these questions that we slowly begin to find solutions.

We can’t forget about Columbine or Sandy Hook or Marysville-Pilchuck High School. Remember these schools for the tragedies they have endured. We have an obligation to every community scarred by these events to put our attention and our hearts into ending school shootings.