The day of December 14, 2012, my mom and I had both stayed home due to having the flu. I was a freshman at East, and my mom is a sixth grade teacher at Parkside Elementary.

That morning, we both woke up around the same time and walked downstairs to grab some breakfast. To keep ourselves occupied, we turned on the TV.

As soon as we flipped on the power to our television, we witnessed live footage of young children running out of a school building with their hands on their heads. The words “school shooting” were immediately spoken from the mouths of news reporters.

Because my mom and I had just woken up, we were still pretty groggy. It was unclear to us whether we were watching a national or local news report. We were unaware if this was occurring in Indiana nearby or somewhere else in the country.

The entire day, my mom and I stayed glued to the television, constantly waiting on updates about the attack. We watched much of the coverage unfold; from reports of multiple shooters to the SWAT team searching the woods nearby the school to find a perpetrator. The news of the shooting struck my mom very personally, being that she is an elementary school teacher herself.

That night, I was scrolling through twitter and a tweet caught my eye that has stuck with me ever since: “the parents of those children went from planning Christmas presents for their children to planning funerals.” That day will forever remind me that life can change in an instant, and to never take anyone in your life for granted.

The next week at school, there were rumors about someone planning to shoot and kill students in The Commons during lunch. Whether those rumors were legitimate or not, I was deeply sickened that someone could plan such a thing following such a brutal moment in our country’s history. Thankfully, school ended up being cancelled that day due to a presence of snow on the ground, but my fear of school violence was still heightened.

Violence in schools is still a legitimate problem in our country, and a solution to this issue is needed immediately. School is supposed to be a place in which students can feel comfort. Children should be able to walk into their classrooms in the morning without having the fear of being shot by violators or tormented by their peers.

Take Columbine, for example, a school not much different from Columbus East. Thirteen students and teachers were fatally shot and killed by assault weapons and 24 students and faculty members were injured. These attacks were carried out by two senior students, not intruders of the school. This is not only a problem of school protection, but protecting our students from within.

Following school shooting such as Columbine or Sandy Hook, the media has also taken initiative to raise awareness of school violence. Television shows such as Glee, Degrassi:The Next Generation, and One Tree Hill have made episodes which depict the issue of school shootings in high school.

This problem is not only prevalent in public school systems in America. There have been multiple school shootings on college campuses in recent years as well. According to a report presented by time.com, there have been over 23 shootings on college campuses just in 2015 alone. The Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 has been pronounced the deadliest shooting by a lone shooting in United States’ history. Just last year at Purdue University, which many seniors at East will be attending next year, student Andrew Boldt was shot to death by another student in a chemistry classroom.

Gun violence in schools is a legitimate problem that needs to be stopped. Students should be able to view school as a safe place to be educated, not a location in which they need to fear for their lives. While a solution to the problem is currently not available, school officials, politicians, and law enforcement need to work together to end this problem in our country.

This story was originally featured in the fourth issue of The Oracle.