John, I'm only in high school, but I've already been affected by gun violence multiple times in my life.
It does not have to be this way.
Young survivors like myself are leading the charge to hold the gun industry accountable for its role in this crisis. It cannot continue to flood our communities with guns and weaken our laws without consequences.
As we end National Gun Violence Survivors Week, join me in honoring my fellow survivors with action: Add your name to hold the gun industry accountable.
For young survivors of gun violence like me, this crisis has shaped our lives. In first grade, my elementary school went on lockdown when an armed man tried to get in. At my old high school, I experienced another major lockdown. In just the last few months, my brother has been robbed at gunpoint and I've witnessed someone get shot. In mid-December, I was held at gunpoint a minute away from home.
Gun violence has traumatized my generation. Right now, it's the number one killer of children and teens in the U.S.
But we also know a future free from this crisis is possible. We can hold the gun industry—which rakes in an estimated $9 billion each year—accountable for putting profit over people's lives.
Our country has done it before, changing the culture around everything from smoking to seatbelts. I know this movement is more than up for the task to do the same when it comes to guns.
Thank you for being a part of this movement, and for honoring survivors like me with action.
Ashley Castillo
She/Her/Hers
Everytown Survivor Network
P.S. Read and share the stories of other survivor changemakers at Moments That Survive.
