The shootout in Antioch High School leads to demands for change

After the fatal shootings at the Antioch High School in the last month, many of them attracted the voice that such violence is wrong.

“For years I have only tried to prevent something with me from happening with me,” said a senior of the antioch school, who said she was in capitol twice before protesting at her school. “Once again, on January 22nd, a unruly shooter entered another school with an illegal firearm. It wasn't just another school, it was my school, my safe place. For those responsible who protect my safe space, I do not forgive them. “

But has the momentum changed after such tragedies over time?

Instead of calling for laws on the red flag to ban a ban on attack weapons or even background checks, the main focus of lawyers, pupils and politicians was the security and mental health right after the shootout in Antioch High School. This is a big tone shift from seven years ago when a man opened fire in a waffle house in Nashville and killed four people. Two years ago, when a shooter killed three children and three adults in the Covenant School, the immediate reaction of the people in Capitol, who asked for arms laws.

The specific details of each incident are relevant for the reaction that you inspire – whether the shootout takes place in a school or not and how many people are killed. Before that, however, it was a common thread that they reliably led to more aggressive restrictions on weapons. Now, with a republican super majority in state legislation, which apparently was not interested in saying goodbye to even the lowest weapons laws, this seems to have changed.

One of the people who make these calls was Maryam Abolfazli. At that time she was a volunteer at Awake TN and one of many who spent a lot of time in the Capitol after shooting the federal government. Her struggle for the security for Nashville's security ultimately led her unsuccessfully against the Republican Andy Ogles, to represent Tennesses 5th congress district in 2024.

“Perhaps one day we get things like a safe memory in a blue moon and this kind of incremental marginal – but important – things,” said Abolfazli. “But in the meantime children are killed.”

After the shootings in Antiochia, students were run in the Capitol and local schools, although they chose with a voting intensity compared to the reaction to the shootout at school.

The efforts focused on community-based initiatives such as a snack drive that made over 2,000 nursing packages for antioch students and how they can provide children mentally, emotionally and with practical resources. Abolfazli said such an action could make a major contribution to making something, especially in a place like Tennessee.

“We are not allowed to talk about mental health because it calls the GOP,” said Abolfazli. “But I'm ready not to talk about it because it doesn't get us anywhere anyway, we don't get the bills we want anyway.”

In all of these cases, the mental health of the shooters, as with most shootings across the country, became a central concern. Overall, the reactions in the city to Antioch shooting made one thing clear: the focus of how to stop gun violence is no longer on weapons.

The Waffle House Shooting, 2018

The most recent discourse was significantly different from what the 29-year-old Travis Reinking mainly got into an antioch waffle house naked, opened fire with an AR-15 and killed four people on April 22, 2018.

The then office david Briley went to social media with this news the next day: “Let's honest what happened. The citizens of Nashville were terrorized last night by a man with AR-15. Enough is enough. “

The then US MP Jim Cooper, a democrat who was also called directly to the arms control.

“Many will now say that it is not time to discuss changes” Nashville scene. “But now Is the time. We can and must do anything to prevent these tragedies and protect the Americans. This begins with the restriction of the widespread civil access to attack weapons in military quality. “

district The 23-year-old son of Democratic MPs Shaundelle Brooks, Akilah Dassilva, was killed at the shootout of the Waffelhaus. At that time she was not yet involved in politics, but the tragedy inspired her to devote her life to the support of weapons control and prevent similar shootings. She spent years to testify Tennessee's state legislature and the federal legislature in DC, and five years later she was one of the most common faces in Capitol after shooting the school in school. In 2024 she won her choice in the State House and made security of weapons priority.

The Bundeschule shootout, 2023

On March 8, 2023, a former student killed three children and three adults before the police killed in the Covenant School.

Weeks later, thousands of people gathered in land capitol to request a reform of weapons rights.

“There was a lot of momentum,” said Alice Ornes, a 16-year-old Sophomore at the Hume Fogg Academic High School. “I really had the feeling that we had the skills to make a change because there were so many of us and so many people from my school went straight to the covenant, and I only had the feeling that we had so much power because of our numbers. I had the feeling that we were all united because we all wanted the same thing. We all went to prevent gun violence. “

Ornes, who was in the middle school during the BUND shootout, is now President of the Hume Fogg chapter from students Demand Action. Almost every day after the federal shooting, ornes, students like her, parents and teachers crowded into the Capitol, who asked for changes. The tensions were high, especially in the State House, in which spokesman Cameron Sexton removed several demonstrators, the sections of the gallery were closed to the public and three democratic representatives who were now known as “Tennessee Three” – were temporarily shown.

Despite all the measures, there were no significant reforms of the Weapons Act.

The hopes of the supporters were inflamed again when governor Bill Lee, whose wife lost a close friend at the shootout in the Covenant School, called a special meeting in August 2023 to combat legislation for firearms. But only four bills – one that appeals to human trafficking, one who provides 30 million US dollars for the security of mental health and school, one that provides the Tennessee residents free firearms, and one to change the requirements for employees, inform TBI about the conclusion of the criminal proceedings – came from this meeting and let the supporters disappoint, with an employment, in which the special meeting “injured and was harmful “.

“It was so discouraging, and it made me so angry to sit on the balcony every day in the Capitol and miss the school, and you would deliver your lunch, get Chick-Fil-A, you would simply behave as if nothing could affect you,” said Ornes. “You could no less interest. And that was really discouraging and disappointing. “

“Sensible weapon reform just feels quite far away.”

Since another shootout at school is slowly fading from the news, supporters of arms reform is a feeling that a direct conflict with the Republican super majority is practically not leading to success and may be counterproductive.

Jonathan Metzl, the director of the Department of Medicine, Health and Society of Vanderbilt University and author of the book in 2024 “What we have become: Life in an armsland,” said he thinks the change in the reaction to shootings reflects the layperson of the political country.

“I think the reaction is currently being measured,” he said. “After earlier shootings, there was hope that there would be legislative changes. But in the current environment, it is not only due to chosen civil servants, but also because the Democrats do not control the judiciary in many places because they have lost elections and such things. The idea that we will say goodbye to a sensible weapon reform feels quite far away for many people. ”

In view of what he described as an unfortunate reality, he said that this was “a moment for the security side of weapon security to re -calibrate”. In his book, he made a plan for the persecution of weapon security in a way that does not specifically include the regulation of the government of weapons.

“What I say is really deeply researching what makes public space safe and what people feel safe in public space and then invest it,” he said. “There are many investigations that are about repairing street lamps and building green and job programs and other types of community investments reduce weapons crime more than many of the regulations for which we have argued.”

Jessica Jaglois, Communication Director of the Voices group for a safer Tennessee, informed the banner in a explanation that the organization would continue to use “for evidence -based solutions that have real effects, including secure requirements for weapon storage.

“It is crucial to prevent young people from accessing firearms at home,” she said. “Tennessee tragically is one of the top 10 states for suicide youth self -murder through a firearm and 3. in the nation for accidental shootings by children. While no individual law can prevent these tragedies, responsible firearm storage is a widespread pragmatic step that can save life. “

According to the Bundeschießerei's shootout, votes for a safer tenessee were criticized last year after reporting that it had contributed tens of thousands of dollars for the state republicans. However, the contributions were a reflection of the group's decision to emphasize the potentially less polarizing goal of weapon security in contrast to weapons controlA term that is almost certain to conclude a discussion in state legislation. In a message to the followers in the last month, in which their efforts were taken up by 94 proposals in connection with firearms, the group said that it should continue to “continue to promote solutions that protect our communities and at the same time respect the rights of the second change”.

Related