As I was winding down my academic career here at Loudoun Valley this past month, I was filling out a scholarship application where they asked me, “What it meant to be a Viking.” The question released a rush of memories of my past four year at this high school. The sight of the red carpet on my first day as a freshman, the sounds of my first ever football game and the feeling when I made my first sports team. All things that have, and will forever stick with me and the moments that truly made me a “Viking.” 

One experience that I hope will never be a part of the induction of a Viking is the sound of bullet casings dropping through Valleys own hallways, or the sight of a friend laying in a pool of blood during a math class. Yet in this country, we can’t afford this sort of thinking. I cannot say with pure confidence that Loudoun Valley won’t go through a horrific tragedy like Sandy Hook, Parkland, Oxford or Uvalde. The continuous line of “thoughts and prayers” spewed by politician after politician following each and every one of these shootings is no use to us. The bickering and disputes on Capitol Hill only allow time for more shooters to tear up American families and stun communities and schools across the nation. You can debate the reasons for these massacres all you want, from mental health to video games, but at the end of the day the motivation has to be combined with one thing, a gun. 

If our country continues down this road of standing idle while innocent children are gunned down at elementary schools then the problem lies within the hearts of us all, not just our lawmakers.