thoughts and prayers

Chatterbox: Down to Earth

thoughts and prayers

thoughts and prayers to Santa Fe 

-<3 

submitted by <3
(May 18, 2018 - 9:05 pm)

... Okay....... Is this a Newsies reference?

submitted by Aspen, age 155 moons, ..........
(May 19, 2018 - 8:42 am)

No. There was a shooting at Santa Fe High School very recently.

submitted by hotairballoon
(May 19, 2018 - 1:31 pm)

I had no idea! Anyway, now that I know, my thoughts and prayers too. This happens way too often and needs to stop soon. I'm praying for everyone there.

submitted by Pooki P, age -30, not where you live
(May 19, 2018 - 3:58 pm)
submitted by It won't stop unless, you do something
(May 21, 2018 - 6:31 pm)
submitted by #NeverAgain
(May 21, 2018 - 7:43 pm)

Yes. This needs to stop.

submitted by Allie
(May 22, 2018 - 8:27 am)

*bows head*

And to all others harmed in or by shootings in these past few months.  

submitted by coyotedomino, age 15, Lost
(May 22, 2018 - 6:41 pm)

Never.

Again.

— 

My love to all of you on the CB, to all schools across the world, to every child on this planet Earth, to their parents, their families. To anyone who has ever suffered, from loss, from heartbreak, from physical wounds and pain. To anyone who has seen these horrors happen, once or many times. To every parent who was or is afraid to send their child to school- to school! My love to all of the children who are being born into this world, this nearly unbearable world- I am there for you. I will take your hands and guide you through, because you will need it. You, none of you in this world, should have the need for these comforting words, but in utterly horrible circumstances, I will provide them and mean them with all of my heart. 

Never again. 

submitted by Ezra
(May 23, 2018 - 4:52 pm)
I think thoughts and prayers do nothing. DO something. We could all fold a thousand paper cranes.
submitted by Glampanda, age age, In my room, with my dolls
(May 23, 2018 - 6:47 pm)

Well yeah, we could, but that's almost as useless as thinking of them.

submitted by .
(May 23, 2018 - 8:37 pm)

Thoughts may do nothing, but prayers most certainly do something, regardless of what it may seem.

submitted by .
(May 23, 2018 - 9:55 pm)

Eh, depends on your faith. A lot of people would say they do, a lot would say they don't. But let's not get into a religious debate, because we all know how those turn out.

Anyway yes, it's disgusting that "school shooting" is a fairly common term in this country. It's disgusting that even after all the rallying and protesting following the Parkland shooting, things like this still happen. It's disgusting that our president thinks the way to end gun violence is to give more people guns.

But as kids/teenagers, what are we really in a position to do? March and rally and shout and protest for the next couple weeks until something like this happens again? Until even more people are injured or killed and politicians have to pretend to care again? Thoughts and prayers, as useless as they may sometimes seem, are about the best we can do right now.

To put it simply and bluntly: Shooting, mass protesting, no real change whatsoever, outrage dies down, public half-forgets until it happens again. Repeat for the foreseeable future. What an absolute dumpster fire this is.

 

submitted by hotairballoon
(May 24, 2018 - 7:10 am)

Thoughts and prayers are nice, but change is what we all need. School should be a safe place to learn. I long for a day when students can sit in a classroom without having to think of an escape route.

submitted by Fidelity
(May 23, 2018 - 9:04 pm)

Ugh. I want to do something, anything, but I have no idea what I could do that would make any difference. The only thing people seem to come up with is “write a letter to your local representative”, which honestly... wouldn’t help that much. Most of them support gun control anyways - I live in a liberal state. The state where Sandy Hook happened, if you were wondering. The students of Parkland were campaigning so that nothing like this would ever happened again. They said that if change didn’t come, it would happen again. And it did. And it will keep happening, unless something changes, which honestly, under the president that we have, doesn’t seem terribly likely. Maybe a little change, but nothing that will make a substantial difference.

It is disgusting that this keeps happening - that almost everyone I know has a story about how their school went into lockdown because someone made a threat and there was no way of knowing if this would happen or not. A man with a gun walked through my brother’s summer camp last year - he was harmless, it turned out, but how was anyone supposed to know that he wasn’t going to shoot them on the spot? It is disgusting that I have had dreams, several times, where I am hiding in my classroom as a shooter is outside, because it happened to other schools so there’s every chance that it could happen to us. The school down my street got threatened but luckily the kid was arrested before he could do anything. 

Sometimes I wonder... so many people of our generation like reading dystopias. But what if we’ve become one? 

Anyways... that was me ranting. I feel very strongly about this. I was thinking about writing a dystopian short story about it. I wouldn’t post it here, it would be too dark, but now that I’m on break I want to start writing things that actually make a difference. 

submitted by The Riddler, age 15, #NeverAgain
(May 24, 2018 - 9:50 pm)

Calling and writing to your congresspoeple really helps! Even just saying, "I support you and I'm sure you'll support this new gun control bill" is a good thing to do.

submitted by Applejaguar, New York
(May 25, 2018 - 5:42 am)