OPINION: 26 years of "thoughts and prayers”

On April 20, 1999, a shooting occurred at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, as 18-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and one teacher and wounded over 20 other people. After their shooting spree, Klebold and Harris both committed suicide. Anne Marie Hochhalter was paralyzed from the waist down after being shot in the chest and the back during the shooting. On February 16, 2025, she passed away and her death was classified as a homicide, which brought the number of victims to 14.

Columbine left a significant impact on the United States because, at the time, it was the worst high school shooting in the U.S. The shooting sparked conversation on school safety and gun control. “Zero-tolerance” rules were expanded beyond weapons and drugs and included misbehavior. Though Columbine is not the first school shooting to happen in the U.S., it was one of the first to unfold on national television.

The deadliest school shooting in the nation’s history, which killed 32 people, occurred on April 16, 2007, at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. The shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, had a history of mental illness and later committed suicide. After chaining and locking the main doors in a building, he began shooting from room to room as 27 students and five faculty members were killed, and over a dozen people were wounded.

Cho should have been prohibited from purchasing a gun under federal law after he was declared to be a danger to himself and others and sent for psychiatric treatment by a Virginia court. Unfortunately, because his history was never added to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) database, he was able to buy one regardless.

The NICS Improvement Amendments Act of 2007 was passed to address this failure. The Virginia Tech shooting highlighted not only gun laws, but also mental health. After the shooting, the Virginia legislature improved the emergency evaluation process, tightened its procedures for mandatory outpatient treatment and increased funding for mental health.

The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred on Dec.14, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut. During the shooting, 20 children and six staff members were killed by 20-year-old Adam Lanza after he killed his mother. He was armed with two semi-automatic pistols, a semi-automatic rifle and rounds of ammunition. Lanza later committed suicide.

Sandy Hook shocked the nation and led to former President Barack Obama calling for stronger gun safety measures. However, the U.S. Senate blocked his legislative goal for expanded background checks for gun buyers. In response to the shooting, the National Rifle Association promoted putting guns into schools. The Sandy Hook Promise was founded in 2013 to “empower youth and adults to prevent violence in schools, homes and communities.”

A false narrative that was pushed by Alex Jones, a far-right radio show host and conspiracy theorist, was that Sandy Hook was a hoax, which led to the parents receiving years of harassment. Mark Barden, father of 7-year-old Daniel, who was killed in the shooting shared that conspiracy theorists had urinated on his son's grave and threatened to dig up the coffin. Instead of parents being consoled, they faced years of hate.

On Feb. 14, 2018, expelled student Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people and wounded 17 others at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Cruz carried an AR-15 style rifle in a black duffle bag. His shooting lasted around six minutes. Cruz has been sentenced to a lifetime in prison without possibility of parole. '

The Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, happened on May 24, 2022. The 18-year-old former student, Salavdor Ramos, killed 19 students and two teachers. Ramos shot at bystanders before going in through a door that could only be locked from the outside. Just two days in the school year were left.

Ulvade was, and still is, the deadliest school shooting in Texas history. Law enforcement was criticized after the shooting for their delayed response. It took 77 minutes after officers arrived for the police to confront the active shooter. The U.S. Justice Department called it a “lack of urgency.”

There was a school shooting August 27, 2025 at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Two children were killed while 19 others were injured; 16 of the 19 were children and 3 were adults in their 80s who were attending Mass. The suspect, 23-year-old Robin Westman, was a former student of the school.

“Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now, these kids were literally praying,” said Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.

The most recent school shooting occurred on Sept. 10, 2025, at Evergreen High School in Evergreen, Colorado. 16-year-old Desmond Holly who was identified as the shooter injured two teenagers, one still in critical condition. Holly later died from a self-inflicted gun shot.

Since Columbine, there have been over 400 school shootings in the U.S. Firearms are the number one cause of death for children in America. As the years go on the number and rate of school shootings rise. The worst part of it is that America seems to have become immune to it.

“Thoughts and prayers” is a common phrase used by many people, including politicians, that circulates after shootings. However, as a country, we need more than “thoughts and prayers” to combat the gun violence happening in our country. We need changes, legislative changes.

“Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it. We've become numb to this,” said former President Barack Obama after a shooting at Umpqua Community College Roseburg in Oregon.

When each of these school shootings happened, they shocked the nation, yet we forget so quickly. I believe every school shooting or mass shooting should shock our country, but they are so frequent that it’s almost expected, as awful as that sounds. We should be protecting our children, not our guns.

While writing this article, I had to update it because another school shooting happened before it was published. That is not normal. America needs to wake up.