The screams of children echoed in the school gymnasium at Sandy Hook Elementary during a mass shooting that took place in 2012.
Lenie Urbina, a fourth-grade student at the time, remembers that day clearly. A SWAT officer told her peers and others to get into the gym closet for safety.
But Urbina isn’t the only person who’s had this type of experience. Gun violence survivors are everywhere.
“I feel like people need to be aware that, we’re not just a number, especially with Sandy Hook,” she said in a phone interview. “We’re not just a statistic of a number of shootings, we’re still here.”
Since the 1999 Columbine school shooting, there has been a rise in gun violence across the United States. Every day students are facing gun violence more frequently in schools. Over the years, research has been done by experts concerning the effects and influence it has on students.
She reminds us of three things: overall awareness is important; gun violence survivors are everywhere; and gun violence can take place anywhere.
Urbina uses her experience at Sandy Hook to support others who have been through similar events, such as the Parkland High School shooting.
“It’s really rewarding to just be able to give back, and I guess kind of be the person that I needed when I was younger,” Urbina said.
With the rise of school shootings, Urbina said there is a community of survivors out there.
“Now, unfortunately, there’s a whole network of survivors out there, and that’s kind of inspiring to see,” she said.
Urbina talked about Sandy Hook Promise, an organization that aims to prevent gun violence in schools and other public spaces and how she would like to see more programs that can help students identify the signs of shootings early on.
Sandy Hook Promise’s mission is to help educate and empower people of all ages to prevent violence in schools, the community and at home. The organization has multiple programs to help people identify individuals who may be a risk to themselves and others or are socially isolated.
Urbina is a first-year law student at the Quinnipiac University School of Law in Hamden.
Urbina reflected on her experience at school since Sandy Hook.
“Ever since it happened, I’ve been really passionate about preventing gun violence and stricter gun laws, and honestly, advocating for mental health,” Urbina said. “Everything that relates to it has just been so important to me, because it does hit really close to home.”
Urbina said she used to feel a lot of anger toward what happened, but she has learned to turn her anger into passion.
Mary Bernstein is a professor at the University of Connecticut in the department of sociology. She has published works on numerous topics including gun violence prevention advocacy. Bernstein advocates outside of UConn for gun prevention through being a part of different organizations and through research on the topic.
She said that community gun violence is the most common form of gun violence.
“On average, more than 120 people are killed by a gun in the US every day, and an additional 200 or so are shot and wounded,” Bernstein said.
Seth Warner, an assistant professor in the political science department at UConn, said he attributes the growing number of school shootings to copycat behavior and the access to firearms in America. Warner focuses on data in the U.S. mainly concerning politics but also has knowledge on gun violence in America.
“It’s just kind of part of our political and social fabric that people be able to own firearms to defend themselves, especially their homes,” Warner said. “And so far as that exists, troubled young people might have access to these weapons.”
He said that some young people can get an obsession or morbid curiosity for school shootings, leading to copycat behavior.
Bernstein has a different take on copycat behavior and the connection to becoming a school shooter.
“I wouldn’t necessarily say that that’s a direct causal link, because lots of people who have been bullied and picked on are never going to pick up a gun,” Bernstein said.
She said that there could be a chance that the experience could be common to some school shooters.
Warner said these individuals are one in a million, but people need to look at other conditions and factors that could lead to something like that.
For one, Warner finds the mental health crisis in young men worrisome.
“You know, a sense of isolation, a sense of despair, for some people could lead to profound angst or anger,” Warner said.
He said that even in the absence of a school shooting, schools still have to be on guard against this type of threat, which in turn takes away from the trusting learning environment that is meant to be provided for students.
“There are undoubtedly profound effects on students’ ability to learn core pieces of the K-12 curriculum,” Warner said.
He said that schools being on guard is a “distal stressor” for young people. A distal stressor is something that is happening in your environment that you cannot control and may not affect you directly, according to Warner.
“It serves as a distraction from their education, and probably has negative mental health effects,” Warner said.
Matthew Zadrowski, the UConn Police Department captain, talked about gun violence in an email.
Zadrowski attributes mental health as a major factor of the increase of gun violence in schools, along with other factors facing society such as political, socioeconomic and financial issues that impact how people feel and act.
“Though UConn may have resources and ways for people to find help, we don’t know what people face before they get here or what the public deals with outside of here,” Zadrowski said.
He said that the UConn PD works closely with groups on campus such as Student Health and Wellness, the Student CARE Team and other areas that ensure those who may be struggling have a place to get help.
Earl Bloodworth is the Executive Director of Connecticut Against Gun Violence, which aims to end gun violence in the state of Connecticut.
Bloodworth states school officials must be in tune with their students.
“I think what we could use a lot more of in schools is, around social work and clinicians, someplace for kids to feel, or youth to feel, that they have somewhere to go and someone to talk to if they’re feeling alone or isolated from the general population,” Bloodworth said.
The organization has focused on safely storing firearms. Bloodworth said that having those conversations and communicating with kids the dangers of handling firearms to help ensure safety against gun violence in schools.
“You know giving kids a set of tools to understand what they should do if they come across a firearm,” Bloodworth said.
How guns are stored can increase access to these weapons, Bernstein said.
“There have been many mass shootings, school shootings, where the person who had access to the gun may have been a minor, may have gotten the gun from their parents,” Bernstein said.
Urbina is surprised by the rate of school shootings since Sandy Hook.
“I mean, we should have been the last one and the fact that this is a daily occurrence now and has been for years is just insane to me,” she said.