Remember Highland Park and fight for change
1,024 days. That is how long it took for closure and justice. 1,024 days ago, my family and I were a part of the Highland Park mass shooting. A mass shooter was in the building behind us. Writing this as a 16-year-old, reflecting on what happened when I was 13.
You see these stories on the news, gaining national attention, but it doesn’t stay prevalent until it happens again. The same responses are generated, “Thoughts and prayers to everyone involved” or “I am so sorry that this happened to your family”. But everyone moves on.
With the FSU shooting, a survivor of the Parkland shooting in 2018 was involved in her second mass shooting. This should be concerning and show the need for a solution.
The Letter from Birmingham Jail, written by MLK, urges us to take direct action in changing unjust laws, rather than just waiting for it to happen organically. If we keep pointing out the recurrence of this issue, shouldn’t that represent that a change needs to occur? Shouldn’t it show that it is unjust? How many more innocent lives do we have to lose before change will eventually happen?
The particular person who made one simple action that has changed my life in undesirable ways is locked away in jail for life. It still cannot take away the possibility of this happening to me again until we create a solution.
Fight for your communities and fight for all those we lost. It is now time to create a solution and to let this keep happening and it is just another figure.
Let a young survivor tell you that she doesn’t want the risk of this happening to her again, or to anyone else. Never forget Highland Park and fight for change.
Ella Novotney
Wauconda