In Our Country: Gun Violence

By Kaylah Curley and Kylie Moffatt

Every mass shooting that makes national news in the United States is followed by another. We are five months into 2023 and there have been almost 200 mass shootings, resulting in mass casualty. More people die every day, and the response to the gun violence remains the same.

The Second Amendment protects one’s right to bear arms, so it is easy to obtain a firearm with minimal requirements or background checks. But, while the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791 to protect oneself from militias, it’s no longer 1791. Welcome to 2023: where guns are now the problem, not the solution.

There is also a difference between safely carrying around a handgun for basic protection and carrying around militarystyle rifles for protection. According to the National Institute of Justice, 25.1% of mass shootings used military-style assault rifles.

The United States has the highest rate of firearm ownership in the world, more than double the next country on the list, wartorn Yemen.

“I think it’s pretty out of hand. I feel like a lot of people are talking about all the violence going on but not many people are actually taking action, though a lot of people that aren’t legislators are. They’re going to protests, they’re speaking out about it, but those in power aren’t really doing enough in my opinion,” sophomore Alissa Zagorski said.

A new surge of anti-gun activism has come at a heavy cost that has been collecting for years. In the last seven years, the number of mass shootings has only gone up, from 269 in 2014 to 648 in 2022, nearly triple. If we continue this current trend of 52 mass shootings in one month, we’ll get to the same number, roughly 648, by the end of the year, if not more.

Gun violence may seem far away, like a story on the news or a statistic told in passing. Reality check, it isn’t. It is in schools, on the streets, and killing kids. Gun-related injury has become the leading cause of death for children between the ages of 1-19, beating car crashes. So far this year 495 teenagers, ages 12-17, have been killed and 1,221 have been injured, as of early May. When is enough, enough?

“Obviously car crashes and gun violence are both terrible things but gun violence is something that can be better prevented compared to car crashes. The fact that’s happening more when it can be prevented is part of the problem,” sophomore Flora Pelton said.

“There are people in America who own 20 guns, or a hundred, or even thousands of guns. That’s terrifying because they’re a threat, anybody who basically has access, becomes a threat…everybody can be part of the problem if the problem doesn’t get solved,” Pelton said.

It is estimated that Americans have

American politics has turned into a political battlefield, a “don’t let Republicans do this, don’t let the Democrats do that” ideology. Policymakers in this country need to get out of their politically polarized mindset and look at what is going on in the country around them. Every time we see a new story reporting on a mass shooting, the question is brought up, how many more people need to die until there is change made in this country?

United States. (Photo by Nick Gatz/Falls Church News Press) bought more than 150 million firearms in the past decade. According to the Small Arms Survey, legal or otherwise, widespread civilian ownership of fully automatic rifles in the United States is only seen in a few other countries, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Yemen.

The question of safety in schools has come hand in hand with America’s rise in gun crime, mass shootings, and child injury or death due to guns. Concerning our school, this same question of safety started with last year’s false alarm intruder alert. “The new campus is great, but it’s basically glass. While, where we live isn’t too violent, we have a lot of areas surrounding us with a lot of violence going on,” Zagorski commented. “And if someone were to enter the school with a weapon, a lot of the surfaces [walls] are glass, so I do feel unsafe sometimes when I think about that.” school. (Photo by Anna Dickson)

Things need to change or “... one day it could happen here and none of us are gonna expect it, it’s just gonna be a random day and then it’s gonna change everybody’s lives forever,” concludes Pelton.

By Mara Statie

Meridian’s Environmental Club has recently risen in popularity, accommodating its highest number of participants this year. The club meets during Mustang Block and works with plants and greenery within the school’s walls.

Senior Anna Dickson, the president of the Environmental Club, said that she “absolutely loves being part of the environmental club” and spends both time and energy “making [the club] an enjoyable and educational experience for all its members.”

The club’s goal is to make Meridian a more sustainable and environmentallyfriendly place. Students have the opportunity to help every Tuesday and Friday during Mustang Block. The group mainly works in the vivarum, maintaining hydroponics like lettuce and basil.

“The vivarium allows us to grow vegetables and other herbs without the use of soil,” Dickson said.

Students weed and harvest the plants over the course of six weeks. Afterwards, members “deconstruct the hydroponic towers, clean them of any salt crystallization, reconstruct them again, and then finally plant new herbs and vegetables.”

All the lettuce and herbs harvested from the vivarium are donated to Hands on Harvest, a nonprofit organization that strives to boost access to fresh produce and to reduce food waste.

Outside of their work in the vivarium,