For the majority of America’s youth, who’ve grown up in an era of mass shootings, shootings have become an unpreventable and inevitable part of life because of heavy opposition by many elected officials and their backers towards any form of gun control legislation being passed in the U.S. Congress. Americans always hear the same rhetoric thrown around the political landscape in regards to gun control following mass shootings. School shootings have become our children’s new norm and many adults have come to feel a sense of apathetic complacency in regards to preventing these events.The young adults at Stoneman Douglas High School have grown up in an era of school shootings, and unlike the survivors of other school shootings, where students may have been younger, the students at Stoneman Douglas are old enough to speak up for themselves and take action where adults are clearly failing to do so. In the days following the shooting, Americans listened to speeches and cries for change from these Florida students. In reaction to the call for change, students at Stoneman Douglas and high schools across the country have planned school walkout days and a national ‘March For Our Lives’ in cities across the U.S. to call for action on gun reform and gun violence. This spurred the popular hashtag and movement #walkout on social media in support of national walkout day this past week.

Unfortunately, many of the students at Stoneman Douglas have been subject to hate on the internet and public ridicule from news commentators and elected officials. Recently on social media, individuals and public officials have been promoting the hashtag #walkupnotout or simply #walkup. The main message of the ‘Walk Up Not Out’ movement has been that students should ‘walk up’ to lonely, bullied or disenfranchised students and try to befriend them. While the message of being kind and friendly to everyone should be a universal message that all children learn in school and that should be reinforced throughout their education, the ‘Walk Up’ movements opposition to National Walkout Day is problematic in both the message it implies and the responsibility and burden it places on students. Being kind to everyone is a given, not a meaningful solution to gun violence. The Walk Up Movement implies that students are somehow responsible for their peer’s mental health and to a greater extent, responsible for preventing shootings. The message that students somehow could’ve prevented mass shootings by simply having been nicer to their troubled peers is a form of victim blaming. Instead of taking legitimate action on these issues, the Walk Up Movement is an easy cop out on gun violence and gun control. The Walk Up Movement also seems to be in conflict with the other messages spread by anti-gun control advocates immediately following this most recent shooting.

Following the shooting at Stoneman Douglas, individuals asked why students didn’t report the shooter, as he was known to have had problems as well as sympathies and possible associations with extremist groups. Many stated that we should worry less about the feelings of others and that students should simply report those they thought were suspicious or had the possibility of committing heinous acts such as a mass shooting. Now we’re telling children that if they’re nice enough to their troubled classmates that hopefully they won’t commit acts of gun violence? These messages are conflicting. At the end of the day, both of these messages are forms of victim-blaming that place an undue burden on the victims of gun violence. Children certainly shouldn’t have to worry about mass shootings in their schools and shouldn’t have to worry about preventing them. Let’s stop victim-blaming children and take legitimate and meaningful action on common sense gun reform. Let’s make sure that those with severe mental illnesses and associations with extremist groups don’t have access to firearms.

Mitchel Smigel is a Jamestown resident.