On February 14 a tragedy happened in Parkland, Florida. At Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Nikolas Cruz has been accused of using a rifle and shooting in the halls. Cruz took the lives of 17 people (at press time) 14 students and three faculty.  

“When I heard about the shooting, my heart dropped. I felt confused and scared. Confused because I couldn’t believe that anyone could do this, and scared that this could happen to me. You always think it will never happen to you, but I bet that those kids didn’t expect that to happen to them either,” sophomore Riley Hughes said.   

The tragedy is one of the deadliest mass school shootings in United States history. Only the Sandy Hook and Columbine school shootings rank higher in terms of lives lost.

“My opinion is that people that have a license and experience with guns and firearms have the right to own one and protect themselves,” freshman Carson Koke said. “The shooting in Florida was terrible but I think it was just a case of someone who needed attention and help and didn’t get any and that ended up with life’s lost. I think this is more about mental illness. If the shooter got help this could have been easily prevented.”

Cruz reportedly suffered some tragedy in his immediate past, as his mother passed away late last year and his father died when he was younger. After his mother’s passing, Cruz was reportedly staying with another family. Indications are that the new family let him keep a gun in a locked box.

“When I first heard about the shooting in Florida, I was shocked. What shocked my even further was the large amount of it that were able to to watch from our phones,” Hughes said.

Cruz has already made a courtroom appearance, and one of Cruz’s lawyers, Gordon Weekes, indicated in court he is unsure whether he will pursue a mental health or disability defense.

“He’s sad. He’s mournful,” Cruz’s public defender Melisa McNeill said in various news reports. “He is fully aware of what is going on, and he’s just a broken human being.”

Cruz purchased this gun legally. The gun, an AR-15 Rifle, was reportedly purchased in Florida where gun rules are much more relaxed than other places in the United States, including easy background checks and a lower age of purchase.

“The idea that it is easier to buy guns in America than it is to my lottery tickets is super concerning,” Hughes said. “In the rest of the world, there have been 18 school shootings in the last 20 years. In the U.S, there have been 18 school shootings since January 1st, 35 days. It only takes so many mass shootings to show that the U.S needs better gun control.”

The full list of students and faculty whose lives were lost to this point are: Alyssa Alhadeff, Martin Duque Anguiano, Nicholas Dworet, Aaron Feis, Jaime Guttenberg, Christopher Hixon, Luke Hoyer, Cara Loughran, Gina Montalto, Joaquin Oliver, Alaina Petty, Meadow Pollack, Helena Ramsay, Alex Schachter, Carmen Schentrup, Peter Wang, Chris Hixon.