It goes without saying that we shouldn’t have to shut down schools to stop school shootings. 

School shootings have been a near constant news event since April 20, 1999 -- when two teens shot up their high school in Columbine, Colorado. 

Today -- April 16 -- marks another tragedy: In 2007, one man with two semi-automatic pistols went on a campus shooting spree at Virginia Tech that killed 32 students and staff and injured another 17. Virginia Tech remains the deadliest school shooting in American history, and at the time was the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman ever in our country. (That number was surpassed by the Pulse Nightclub shooting, then the Las Vegas shooting).

John -- I share your frustration that nothing has changed in terms of gun safety policy at the federal level since Columbine in 1999. 

Nothing has changed since Virginia Tech in 2007.

Nothing has changed since Sandy Hook in 2012.

And nothing has changed since Parkland in 2018. 

Two entire generations of children have gone to class thinking: This could happen to me. I might not be safe at school or on campus.

So today, I’m praying for the families and communities who lost someone in Blacksburg, Virginia. And Columbine, Sandy Hook, Las Vegas, and everywhere else. Our gun safety work remains as important as it ever has been -- and it shouldn’t take school being closed by a pandemic to stop school shootings. America, we’re better than this. 

With love, 

-- Lucy