See Something, Say Something

In light of the recent school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Broward County, Florida is in the midst of an epiphany. There have been 8 school shootings since the start of 2018, including Stoneman Douglas. And John A. Ferguson has a few things to say concerning the latest tragedy where the lives of 17 people were lost.

Since this devastating event, Ferguson staff and administration have already resent their teachers the steps and procedures that should be taken if an event similar to the one at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were to occur here. There are also multiple programs on campus to counteract violent behavior. Such as Say Something, Start with Hello, and S.T.A.N.D. Say Something and Start with Hello are both programs implemented by the AP Psychology teacher, Michelle Vigoa-Suarez, honoring the Sandy Hook Promise. S.T.A.N.D is an acronym for students together against negative decisions. The goal of the STAND Club is to educate students on the consequences of underage drinking, drug use, texting and driving, and other negative decisions.

There are also multiple things that Ferguson as a school can do to prevent dangerous incidents from happening on our campus. According to Vice Principal Ideal Garcia, “we have code reds, code yellows in place and we just recently had a drill. We always have multiple drills a year, we have one in October and another one in January, we also have safety committee meetings and we just had one last Thursday. We did have a meeting with security this morning. This morning we did have an administrative meeting about reiterating and vigilance.” Safety is the primary concern of the administration here at Ferguson. But do the inhabitants of John A. Ferguson feel safe?

“I still feel safe at John A. Ferguson because we have a lot of programs that help reach out to our students like Start with Hello and STAND the club,” said Sophomore Eleazar Padilla said.

However, not all students share Eleazar’s views. According to Ricardo Risco, there should be more security guards in our school.

“I do not feel safe, I feel security needs to be amped up more, because we’re such a big school and there are so many people, there needs to be a few more security guards,” he said.

According to statistics, 95 people die every day from gun violence and 6 of these people are under the age of 18. This means that in one year a total of 34,668 people die from a gun-related injury. Of these deaths, 2,277 are children 18 and under. There are 219 people injured every day from these deadly weapons and 34 of them are 18 and under. This means in one year, a total of 79,976 people are injured due to gun violence. Of these gun injuries, 12,506 are children 18 and under. (Statistics provided by sandyhookpromise.org)

These statistics coincide with the lack of gun control laws in the state of Florida. Individuals in our state have the ability to own a gun without a permit or license to do so. Floridians are also capable of purchasing as many guns at a time as they desire because our gun control laws don’t regulate that. Additionally, it is not required for gun sellers to have a state license to sell firearms. These facts and the statistics previously stated prove that tighter gun control laws need to be implemented, not only in the state of Florida but in the United States of America as a whole. English teacher, Elizabeth Brito, passionately elaborated on her views regarding gun control laws when saying: “I feel that there should be no place for weapons on streets, I understand a handgun for safety in your home, I even understand a rifle being used for hunting, but these assault weapons that were designed for the military have no place being on our streets or to be owned by a civilian.”

Principal Rafael Villalobos spoke out about the incident that occurred at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and expressed sincere condolences while saying that “what happened yesterday was horrific. It’s horrific every time it’s happened and it’s happened multiple times across our country, and that’s why we brought the Sandy Hook Promise, and that’s why we really want to empower our students to if they see something, hear something, say something. And to really understand ourselves and our differences and our hardships and that’s really helped …” Principal Villalobos also added, “we continue to be safe, we continue to keep open door policies where our students can come and talk to us, where teachers can come and talk to us. Where students suffering from any emotional anxiety [can come talk to us].” And that is why if one were to see a peer struggling, one has now seen something, so one should remember to say something.