By Laura Finley
In the early afternoon of April 17, 2025, I received what to date has been the worst message ever sent to me. It was my daughter, a senior at Florida State University, texting that she was running from campus because there was an active shooter nearby. My husband and I immediately turned on the news to learn that the police were on the scene and that some students were staying in classrooms or hiding while others were fleeing.
I am grateful that my daughter thought to run when they heard the gun shots from her classroom, as did her boyfriend, who was very close to where the shooting started. They somehow found one another and kept running until they were at a friend’s house off campus, where they proceeded to try to check in with all of their friends. Thankfully none of their friends were injured or hurt, but the gunman did kill two people and injured seven others.
I know that my daughter is still on ready alert when she hears sirens or what sounds like gunfire. I know the parents have it easy in comparison, but I had also hoped never to have that kind of scare again.
And then I woke up on March 1, 2026, to read a headline about a mass shooting in Austin, my daughter and her boyfriend’s new home where she attends law school. This time a gunman opened fire in a bar, not far from her campus, leaving 14 people wounded. I couldn’t stop crying as I messaged her to ensure that they were OK—thankfully, yes—but I learned that they were very near that location just one night before.
When does this stop? According to the Gun Violence Archive, there has already been 50 mass shootings in the US three days before this one in Austin. Why should students have to worry about a gunman on campus or at a local place they enjoy? Why should parents (like me) have to read the headlines and wonder if the second time my daughter was close to one of these incidents was the last?
I am absolutely gutted. I don’t know what to do but to love hard and use the platforms I have to implore people to care about our kids. But mass shootings cannot be separated from the violence that is structurally a part of the United States.
This country has been built on violence, justifies violence when it suits its needs, and produces narratives to young people that violence is the answer to conflict. Violence is the way the United States typically “solves” international and domestic conflicts, from killing indigenous peoples and taking their lands to “removing” leaders to suit its needs.
As I write this I am reading about the US and/or Israel killing 153 schoolgirls in Iran and I am dying for those families. Reports are that the shooter in Austin may have been in retaliation for the US attacks. We do not know the full story, but it seems clear that structural violence once again begets other forms of violence.
This has got to stop. May we all figure out how to do better—for us, for our world, and please, for our children.
Laura Finley, Ph.D., syndicated by PeaceVoice, teaches in the Barry University Department of Sociology & Criminology and is the author of several academic texts in her discipline.
