The first time I remember being afraid of gun violence was when I was 5 or 6 years old. I remember seeing my dad leaving late night. Somehow I knew what he was going to do when he kissed my mom good bye like he was going to war. My first physical experience was when I was kinda young. I was shot at but they were not trying to shoot at me. They shot because they thought I was my uncle and I still got the scar from one of the bullets grazed me and that’s when I knew that the world was not a good place and it can only take one mistake and your life can be taken from you within seconds. So every time I go outside I’m aware of my surroundings. That’s also when I completely lost my childhood. Another time was when me, my friend and cousin was out late night around one in the morning getting chips and we heard gunshots and then five cars are speeding by getting chased by the cops and as soon as we get home my parents were scared that we were gone. The next day we found out that it was my uncle that was shot and killed. I think we can ban guns from the U.S so the gun violence can stop and so the killing can stop too.
Student AJ
My 1st time fearing for my safety in my neighborhood was in june of 2017 and i was walking with my little brother in the park in front of Nobel elementary school and there was a group of teenagers showing of a gun and it discharged and the bullet scratched a girl that was in front of the gun, but what got me mad is that police came and put no effort into looking for the gun and just left it alone and let that guy leave and the reason that I feared for my safety was because since the police didn't do anything to take a gun out of the streets, I know that the next time that gun gets used it's either gonna hurt or kill somebody.
I never feared for my life up until january 23 2018 when Manuel Ramirez was shot dead in front of my house. It was like about 6pm and i went outside to go to my dads van and about a min after i went back inside i heard 6 gun shots and it scared me because they sounded super close and i look outside and i saw a car going down the street real slow and i stopped looking outside cause my little sister was scared and like 40 seconds later I see like 3 police cars pulled up in front of my house and then I looked outside and see more cops pull up, about 10 to 15 squad cars where in my block within a min and i see them all running towards the car that i saw going down the street slowly and that's when i knew that this was more than just a drive by shooting and I saw when the paramedics loaded the person into the ambulance and i can already tell that he wasn't alive but they confirmed he was dead in the hospital. When all the police were investigating i took the scene to social media to let people know what's going on in the neighborhood cause i felt like someone would know what happened and 10 mins later i got a message saying that the boy who was killed was a senior at Roberto Clemente and i later found out that he had nothing to do with any gangs that he was just an innocent guy heating up his car and got shot at for no reason and now he's gone. The day i went to his funeral was really hard to see him in his casket because all I could think about was when i heard the gunshots that got him and just the thought of that if i was outside more longer that could of easily been me but i still think if i'm next to be killed on the street because if an innocent guy was shot dead out on the street what is it suppose to mean for me?
Student AC
When was the first time you felt fear of guns, violence or for you and your family’s safety? When i was 11 or 12 around that age i woke up on morning to crying and just seeing my mother falling to her knees while on the phone broke me i ran as fast as i could to hold her her but every second i felt as if i wasn't getting close to her fast enough and when i hugged her so tight and she told me to stay home with my sister. Little did i know my brother got shot that day about 6:23 in the morning while being out with his guy friends. So i saw my parents leave and i saw my mom yelling at my dad telling him to hurry up. I remember hurting and just thinking every bad idea in my mind. My dad came back home about 5 hours later without my mom i remember my sister asking my dad where my mom was and my dad sat us down in the living room and explained how everything went down and how my brother got shot two times. The first bullet hit him slightly on his right side of my ribs and the second bullet went thru his cheeks and told us to get ready to go to the hospital that day and so we did arrived and my mom was already in the room she looked really tired and in pain i had to suck all of my feelings and care for her. At that time my brother was in surgery and he didn't come out for a while but it took him about 7 months to recover and after that my brother and my family has been more relaxed with everything we do. Our family has gotten stronger since then.
Student AA
The first time I was scared of gun violence was when i was on my brother/close friends block and we were playing basketball during this time a car came flying down the block and next thing you know boom boom boom shots were fired out of a car see we never expected anything to happen on this block because it was always locked down people knew not to come down this block see but the thing was them boom boom boom killed somebody that I knew from the block that brand the fear onto my eyes that made me see what guns can do how in a simple minute anything can happen even if nobody expected it .
I honestly don’t know where to start off but I am going to explain my experience on gun violence. See, to tell the things that I have been through is hard to explain but I am going to talk about this one time I was walking home with one of my brothers. We had come from the gas station from buying some snacks and some cough medicine. It was cold, it was at 2 am and a man walked in that gas station asking if anybody would want to buy an Iphone. He came to me and my brother and asked if we wanted one. He had left before us after we said no. As I was walking he stopped me on his bike and put a gun to my head and said if you don’t give me your Iphone I’m going to shoot. At this point I didn’t know if I wanted to give it to him, but I rather live then lose my life.
Another situation was when I was playing basketball outside and this man ran through the park, shot in my direction. I was scared and praying that it didn’t hit me but it wasn’t for me. I ran and the man chased me because he knew I had seen his face. I hit ever gate, every corner and yet I still haven’t got caught.
To me, I feel like I will never get caught because all I do is run from violence I see every day.
I lost my friend from gangbanging. He was shot in the back walking home from school. Somebody I was so connected to was taken away from a gun that had put a shell in my friend's back. I lost all fear the day my friend had died, I started to feel like nobody can stop me and nobody will fear me. I built this mentality of I will not fear no gun, but that I will try to stop the gun violence. This can’t continue in my eyes. This situation stops so many people from growing old that it hurts on the inside and I wish it can just stop.
What do you think we, as young people and a nation, can do to stop senseless killing?
Honestly i can never say that we can't do anything because you can always do something but it doesn't necessarily mean a change is going to happen but we can protest about the violence and do things for people to understand the things kids face and the things other people face yearly basically how things are different for us kids and for other people how other people never even experienced this pain and never experienced the things we go through daily.
Student V.
The first time I ever felt fear of guns, or violence was when I was about 3-4 years old when my mom, younger sister, and me were on our way to pick up my older sister from kindergarten. We were just less than a block away from the school when we heard gunshots and they were right in front of the school. There was a woman that told us to get in her so that we wouldn’t see them because we were so little. My mom was so scared because it was almost time for my sister to get out of school and she didn’t want her to get out if the gangs were still shooting at each other, but by the time my sister gout out they were already gone. We were so lucky because they were shooting almost right in front of us.
Many people have lost their freedom due to violence in the world. Now a days so many people are scared to walk outside or even get out their house because of how much violence we hear about. For example, my mom sometimes is so hesitant to let me go out because she hears the news of how many accidents happen when teens are out on their own. Not everyone can do what they want because they’re scared something might happen.
Student A.
The first time i felt scared for both guns and violence was when i was 8 years old, i witness my step brother's murder. I was only 8 years old when i first saw someone from my family die on my arms. I still remember how many gun shots had past through me and my step brother was getting in the way so that i wouldn't get hurt. I still remember the smell of the street and my step brothers smell too. I cry every time i remember him or when someone talks about him, right now he's going to be 6 years since he past away. Since i was 7 to now, i been going through a lot and it's only about gang violence, guns control, drug dealing and murder, those are the four reasons why i moved here with my dad but that doesn’t make a difference. My whole life has been only about violence but am still holding up and i might act happy and i be laughing all the time but in the inside i am the only one who is hurt. To be honest i been in a lot of funerals from my family, i had lost the count but there are more than 10. My friends and Family keeps me strong enough to keep me happy and keep on going with my life...
Well in this case i have a lot to say...i lost my innocence when i was 7 years old. I lost most of my family and i regret not doing anything about it, in that time i wished i would of been ready and strong so i would of done anything. Most of my cousins lost there innocence when they were 11 or 12 years old. My dad lost his innocence when he was 5 or 6 years old, he escaped from home from that age and he was also a gang member at that age. Right now my brother was about to make the same mistake but thank god he didn't, he choose his education over gang stuff. Right now he still in high school, he almost has all of his credits, his almost graduating too. But he hasn’t stop smoking weed i don’t know what’s going on with him