Iwill not tell you my triggers, or the things I can no longer enjoy, because they are fluid and changing. Sometimes I look up at a sky with no clouds and all I can think of is how that was what the sky looked like on the day of the shooting, but sometimes I just think, I wish there were clouds because it’s so, so, so hot.

The strangest part of being a survivor was how badly strangers wanted to touch me, like I was a living relic. They’d shake my hand, or hug me, or lean on me to cry. They also wanted to tell me about the tragedies that touched them. So many voices saying how their loved ones had been gruesomely shot and killed. I’m an empathetic person, and I had no idea how to guard myself, how to turn away and toward myself. So I listened and I hugged these strangers back. Only months earlier, none of these people knew who I was. I was just a high-school kid in Parkland.


Before the shooting — February 14, 2018, perpetrated by a 19-year-old white supremacist at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School — my plan was to get the fuck out of Florida, the farther the better. Now, I write this from my pink childhood bedroom, having moved back home after graduating from college last year. I spend my days trying to get my future on the rails, finding new music, making zines, sewing, smoking weed, cooking, cleaning, figuring out what I want to do for work. I’m trying to be a good roommate to my parents. We watch movies together every night, making up for lost time.

It’s been almost five years since my classmates and I marched for the first time, and it’s hard not to feel like things are pretty much the same. Gun violence happens every day in this country. In November, the trial that was supposed to bring closure to our community brought only disappointment after the shooter was spared the death penalty. I see my March for Our Lives compatriots at protests once or twice throughout the year. I’m still trying to figure out what type of activism I want to engage in, since I don’t want to be passive for the rest of my life but I cannot exist in the way that I used to. I don’t know how I’m alive after all that.

12 months

1,200 American kids killed by guns

1,200 stories about the lives they led, reported by teen journalists across the country

Fatal shootings of children have been on the rise, government data show. But as the deaths mount, the toll is bigger than what numbers can capture.

See their names.

4 in 10 Americans think it’s at least somewhat likely they will be a victim of gun violence in the next five years. That’s one of several takeaways in a new survey from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, The Associated Press, and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,373 Americans.

The number of years the Gun Violence Archive has recorded more thab 4000 children and teenagers killed or injured by gun violence in one year since it began tracking data in 2013. On Wednesday it reached that grim milestone again for the third year in a row.

How Guns Are Sold
Gun control advocates are petitioning the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the firearms industry’s marketing practices.

Gun marketing promotes an illusion of safety, the petitioners say. Americans have “been falsely led to believe that gun ownership is a safe way to protect their home and family,” they argue. The C.D.C. reported 45,222 deaths from gun-related injuries in 2020 . The F.T.C. “has effectively given the gun industry a free pass,” the petitioners say.

Everytown Calls on the FTC to Investigate Smith & Wesson’s Dangerous Assault Rifle Marketing Practices
WASHINGTON – Fred Guttenberg, Everytown for Gun Safety and Brady on Monday released a complaint calling on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Smith & Wesson’s advertising and promotion of its M&P line of assault rifles, citing substantial evidence the company uses unfair and deceptive practices to market the rifles to young, male consumers — a demographic that includes a disproportionate number of the shooters in the 10 most destructive mass shootings of the past decade.

Democratic Lawmakers Want F.T.C. to Go After Gun Ads
A new bill being introduced in Congress on Thursday seeks to use the powers of the Federal Trade Commission to limit the spread of guns. The bill would allow the F.T.C. to investigate gunmakers for deceptive advertising practices. That is something the agency is charged with doing for all industries, but has been reluctant to do so with gun manufacturers, which has long received extra protections from Washington, the DealBook newsletter reports.
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It calls for the F.T.C. to file a report to Congress in a year’s time identifying ads that are designed to appeal to those under 18, feature semiautomatic assault weapons or imply or encourage an illegal use of guns.

A casual trip to our local Home Depot sadly displays America’s true concern for its children. I went to buy some corded windows blinds to replace damaged ones only to find there were none to be found; only cordless versions were available. When I asked the store associate for help, she mentioned corded blinds are now illegal as too many children are strangled by them. A quick online search reports 300 children died annually from strangulation by the cords — tragic but dwarfed by the 10,000 children killed each year by guns. And gun manufacturers adamantly refuse to put smart-phone like fingerprint locks on their guns.

Seriously, what’s wrong with this country?

— Darius Mohsenin, Santa Cruz