By Ivy Reeves
We cannot turn on the news without seeing another violent crime, murder or stabbing. The media cannot cover all the shootings occurring every day in America.
Since 1996, there have been forty-eight school shootings in middle and high schools, and out of that thirty-seven shooters were 18 years of age and under. More than 311,000 of us have experienced gun violence since Columbine. America holds the record for the most mass school shootings, which unfortunately has been around for way too long and seem to be getting worse.
There are people who believe gun control and legislation is necessary in the attempt to stop this trend. After all America has more guns than people. Some citizens believe we should arm the teachers, arm the school security guards, and provide metal detectors at every school. But Gun Violence Researcher, Garen Wintemute says, “the key to preventing gun tragedies and stopping gun violence is to treat them like a public health disaster.”
The Second Amendment of the United States of America, which allows citizens to keep and bear arms, will be difficult to amend, change or repeal, so now we must find other ways to meet this challenge.
On Tuesday July 12th, 2022, a dinner meeting took place at Silvio’s restaurant in Yonkers NY. The meeting was a private affair focusing on the preparation for an unfortunate school shooting in the city of Yonkers. The purpose of the meeting was to galvanize significant department heads ,who are sincere visionaries and forward thinkers, to discuss and implement a plan in the unfortunate case of a mass shooting at our schools or public areas such as grocery stores and parks here in the City of Yonkers. This dinner gathering excluded ego, pride, and selfishness, but welcomed compassion, care, empathy, and sympathy.
Those in attendance were commissioners and heads of departments in both the city of Yonkers and Westchester County, along with community leaders and students. The group plans to meet again this month with a plan for the 2022-2023 school year. It was important to pull this exclusive group together after watching and reading the devastating news of school shootings over the past few years and realizing that this could happen in any town, village, or city.
The fact is their reality could become a reality in our city. Therefore, it was important to pull this group of first responders, commissioners, mental health workers, community leaders and students together to design preventive measures to stop children and other innocent people from getting injured or killed.
Yonkers organizer and community advocate Ivy Reeves said, “Selected officials were not invited to the first meeting because they may politicize the event to appear initiative-taking , proactive and caring when in essence, they’ve been in office for quite some time and shootings have been taking place for years, yet they have not come together to organize a plan to help protect our children and or residents. The group will be meet again in this month to summarize the plans and activities have for this upcoming academic year.”
“If Fail to Plan, You Are Planning to Fail” – Benjamin Franklin
