When a empty shoes wait for a student
Where will America’s education go? It’s the personal question when watching media news and witness how education has worsened in United States: gun shots, teacher strikes for better salaries and work conditions and less education quality according to UNESCO. Everybody wonders if Donald Trump’s government will change at any time of his administration the alarming situation, although it’s pretty sure and quite impossible that he will change anything at all. Every time he opens his mouth, that is, his Twitter account is for flubbing, and generating polemic and contradiction. The most disturbing thing is the gun control issue at schools and how to reverse the situation.
Many activists went to the US Capitol to protest against Donald Trump retracting words about more controls of fire guns. He, as usual, surprised once again the public opinion when he said to the press that he will not rise up the legal age for gun’s possession. Why did he do that? How can he fail to his own people? What about those families’ victims, activists, students and teachers claiming to change the terms of guns owners?
A clear depiction of reality is the image taken by a Reuters photographer of a Vans sneakers, what was left of Daniel Mauser, a student who died at Columbine’s attacks in 1999 when two armed men shot and killed around dozen people. It was a tragedy for all the country, still, the fathers and mothers of those kids cry and ask for justice not in the sense of taking the criminals behind bars but for letting the country to bleed out with the continuing massacres. Supposedly, schools should be the safest places for children but, since decades, being at a school could be a hell and therefore, being a teacher is currently one of the most dangerous jobs at the United States.
First Columbine, now Parkland and surely there will be more to come. Tom Mauser, Daniel´s father, had a lot of reasons to march to US capitol with 7 000 pairs of shoes and lay them out on the grass as a tribute to those children victims of gun violence. It is projected than 2 500 solidarity marches are programmed to cross the country.
In the United States of America, a national movement against gun possession and violence is taking place. After Parkland, Emma Gonzalez, a Cuban American girl rose up her voice and her classmates and teenagers around the country united to her claim. Even from Washington students are joining the movement. They expect to push Donald Trump’s government and federal lawmakers to stop violence and to change the rules on gun’s ownership, a concerning issue that every month takes away lives young person. The US are taking conscience of the urgency to change gun laws, and make some adjustments to the US Constitution’s2nd Amendment.
One of the proposals is to raise up the age of gun owners, to check medical records and background before a purchase, and the most important thing, a ban on assault-style weapons.
Sadly, lawmakers are not worried at all, and the president of the nation declaring to arm teachers at school makes it insane and could unleash a real war inside the education centers. The National Rifle Association dominates part of the politicians at the State and many Senators and Congressmen have a huge debt with the gun lobby, included Donald Trump and Marcos Rubio.
The shoes memorial is a reminiscence of Hungarian honor paid to thousands of people killed by fascists in the ‘40s last century. Canada celebrates on December 6 the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women and used that day the “shoe memorial” initiative. According to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, around 1 300 people under 18 are killed by gun shootings in the United States every year.