Friend,
I wish I didn’t have to write this message.
Last weekend, thirteen years after a shooter killed 20 young children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School, two shootings rocked communities around the world. On Saturday, two students were killed and nine others were injured at Brown University as they studied for finals, and on Sunday at Bondi Beach in Australia during a Hanukkah celebration, 15 people were killed and dozens others were injured in a horrific antisemitic attack.
I want to say it was unthinkable. I want to say I can’t believe this has happened. But the truth is, in America, we have seen this happen far too often.
There were students at Brown University who survived other mass shootings just years earlier. Mia Tretta, a member of our youth-led initiative, Team ENOUGH, was shot and injured at Saugus High School in 2019 only to relive a nightmare she should have never experienced in the first place. Another student, Zoe Weissman, was in her Brown dorm room when the shooting happened, and had also survived the 2018 shooting in Parkland, FL.
No one should have to survive one mass shooting, never mind two. Brown University has even been forced to create a new code for students to add to their transcripts if they weren’t able to finish their finals because of a mass shooting.
In America, we are codifying school shootings. In Australia, they are taking action.
One day after the hate-fueled attack in Sydney, federal and state leaders agreed to tighten gun laws to help prevent tragedies like this from ever happening again — including laws to limit the number of firearms an individual can own — and they will host the biggest gun buyback in 30 years.
On the contrary, President Trump’s response to the shooting at Brown University was, “Things can happen, so to the nine injured, get well fast.”
It is utterly unthinkable that this is how our leaders in America respond to children being killed — especially as there have been over 390 mass shootings this year alone.
So today, we ask you to help us change this inaction. We ask you to join us in telling Congress that enough is ENOUGH. We ask you to take action and call on Congress to stop school shootings with more than just thoughts and prayers.