The day before spring break, there was an announcement over the PA that the doors would be locked and no one would be let out. I was in band, and we just continued playing, but I felt like something was wrong. Later, there was an announcement that the school was now on lockdown. A suspicious man was around/near/inside the building.
Ever since Parkland, I’ve had a steadily increasing fear of gun violence. The band room is one of the safest rooms in the school, due to the sheer amount of large objects that can be used as barricades, but I still was messaging my parents to tell them I loved them. I don’t remember how much time passed, but when the lockdown was over, I broke down and had my dad pick me up.
A few days later I was in D.C., on Capitol Hill, when an article popped up: The man who caused the lockdown had a gun in his car, and he was in the school building. What crossed my mind as I went through all of the security at the Capitol was: Why do politicians have so much protection, but students don’t?