Ten people were killed and 10 others wounded after a 17-year-old student opened fire at Santa Fe High School in Texas. It is the deadliest school shooting in America since February 14 when 17 people were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
Emily Weingarten, a 19-year-old UF business management sophomore and MSD alumna, said she first heard the news of the Santa Fe shooting through Twitter. She said when she saw Santa Fe High School was trending, she immediately knew why.
“We said ‘Never again,’ but it’s happening again,” Weingarten said.
Weingarten said she was reminded of what happened at Parkland and felt sympathy for the victims in Texas.
“I know how much my community has struggled with the loss of 17 lives and everything we had to witness,” said Weingarten, “I can remember every little detail of that day, from what I was wearing to who I spoke to.”
Max Baron, a 20-year-old UF English junior and MSD alumnus, said he feared the day Parkland would no longer be the most recent deadly school shooting.
“All it took was three months to go by to confirm my suspicions,” Baron said. “How many more times will this go on?”
Weingarten, Baron and other UF students and MSD alumni are members of Never Again Florida, a group advocating for stricter gun control laws and better access to mental health care.
Weingarten said it also promotes increasing awareness for gun violence, encouraging youth to vote and helping personally affected students current and incoming.
Adler Garfield, a 19-year-old UF advertising junior, is the president of Never Again Florida and a MSD alumnus. He said he and others were upset and frustrated when they heard another high school mass shooting occurred.
“We continuously see this happening and nothing has changed,” Garfield said.
Weingarten and Garfield also said Never Again Florida met with UF President Kent Fuchs in April to discuss goals the program wants to accomplish. Among the list are having faster, more accessible officers on sight if there is ever a campus threat; providing mental health resources such as on site counselors; and helping incoming MSD students make a comfortable transition into UF by working at Preview and offering them any help needed.
Baron said the organization is already setting in motion relief funding for the neighborhood and families affected in Texas on Facebook. He said members of the forum have volunteered to reach out to the superintendent of Santa Fe High asking if they need financial assistance.
Weingarten, Baron and Garfield said they believed one of the keys to stopping the high incidence of mass shootings across the nation is not through banning guns, but rather increasing the restrictions on easy access to guns.
“We need a safer America,” Garfield said, “For our generation, the next generation and the generations to come.”
Follow Dana Cassidy on Twitter @danacassidy_ and contact her at dcassidy@alligator.org.
Ten people died in a school shooting on Friday at Santa Fe High School, just south of Houston, Texas. (KTRK-TV ABC13 via AP)
