According to a report on the website of The Dallas Morning News on the 26th, millions of children in the United States will return to school at the beginning of the new semester. However, a new study found that the number of school shootings in elementary and middle schools in the United States increased by 31% in the last school year. The report criticized that it is the American students who are bearing the reality behind this severe situation. They have learned in the blockade drills how to hide, find cover and keep quiet in the school corridors, cafeterias or parking lots when gunshots are heard. However, things should not be like this.

According to a study released earlier this month by gun safety advocacy group Everytown and the K-12 School Shooting Database, there were 144 shootings on U.S. schools last school year, with 36 deaths and 87 injuries. This is a significant increase from the 110 shootings, 29 deaths and 72 injuries in the 2022-23 school year. A deeper look into this revealed another disturbing trend. The researchers pointed out that the number of police shootings in the United States reached a record high last school year, and unintentional shootings caused by accidental discharges of guns also reached a record high. In one incident, a high school in Alabama was hosting a basketball game, and a gun fell from a person's waist and caused an accidental discharge, injuring two people.

In the North Texas region, people are no strangers to school shootings. In April of this year, an 18-year-old student at James Bowie High School in Arlington was shot and killed by another 17-year-old classmate. Just a few days before this incident, another student was shot and killed in a classroom at Wilmer-Hutchins High School in Oak Cliff. The report said that because the states and the country's elected officials refuse to make meaningful progress in protecting students from gun violence, it has made it extremely easy for people to obtain guns. Texas chose to strengthen campus management, but did not choose to pass the "red flag bill" for gun control. Congress is also reluctant to conduct universal background checks on people who buy guns.

An article recently published by Upworthy, an American news aggregation website, also wrote that although childhood is often seen as a time of innocence, today, when cruel realities such as school shootings are unavoidable, even children find it difficult to maintain this innocence. Speaking of the terrible impact of school shootings on American children, Lindsay said: "When a 10-year-old child doesn't even want glowing shoes because he is afraid of becoming a victim of shooting, as a country, we have failed." This post has received more than 670,000 hits in just a few days, and many people deeply agree with it. Netizen @TheManTheDuke commented: "In the good old days (now gone), our parents would tell us to go to the park and play, and then go home after dark. I hope one day I can do the same to my children."

Netizen @tiggermenow also told a similar story: "When my son was in the second or third week of kindergarten, he came home and said he needed new shoes. The shoes he was wearing were less than a month old. At that time, the kindergarten organized a shooting prevention drill, and he was told that his pair of luminous shoes were dangerous to himself and his classmates."

Another mother named Shari shared a story between her and her teenage daughter, whose response to her "I love you" message reflected the psychological impact of school shootings on American minors. Shari said that one day she casually sent her daughter a message saying "I love you" in the office, but she was shocked to see that her daughter sent many worried replies asking her "Are you okay?" Moreover, her daughter called her immediately and said that you should not send "I love you" without context because "this is something you would send to others when you are in trouble, such as when a school shooting occurs."

Many American netizens believe that this is the reality faced by children living in the United States, and many parents and teachers also feel the same way.