On September 10, 2025, the nation stopped in its tracks when news broke that Charlie Kirk, a high-profile conservative activist, had been killed while speaking at Utah Valley University. Social media feeds filled instantly, television news ran nonstop coverage, and leaders from both political parties stepped up to issue statements. For days, it was impossible to miss the story.
But here’s what many people didn’t notice: on that very same day, students at Evergreen High School in Colorado faced their own nightmare. A teenager opened fire on campus, killing himself and critically injuring classmates. The school went into lockdown, parents waited outside with fear carved across their faces, and another community was left shattered. Yet the story barely registered beyond local headlines.
That disconnect should disturb us. One death, while tragic, received wall-to-wall coverage because it involved a public figure. The other, involving children in the place where they are supposed to be safest, barely rippled outside the region. It’s not that people don’t care about kids. It’s that we’ve grown so used to school shootings that they hardly shock us anymore. And that’s the problem.
A Decade of Too Many Names
Look back over the past ten years and the list of school shootings reads like a grim roll call. Sandy Hook is still seared into memory, where 20 young children and six educators were murdered in their classrooms. Parkland followed, where teenagers fled Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in tears after 17 lives were taken. Uvalde brought us haunting images of parents begging police to enter a school while gunfire still rang out inside. Nashville’s Covenant School became another heartbreaking headline in 2023, when three nine-year-olds and three staff members were killed by a former student armed with military-style weapons. Oxford High in Michigan, Santa Fe High in Texas, and countless other campuses faced the same horror. Even in smaller incidents where only one or two students were killed, the pattern is the same and that includes sirens, lockdowns, parents rushing to reunification sites, and the hollow grief of lives cut short.
And when you line them up in order, the devastation becomes even clearer:
- 2012 – Sandy Hook Elementary (Newtown, Connecticut): 20 children and 6 educators murdered inside their classrooms.
- 2014 – Reynolds High School (Troutdale, Oregon): A 15-year-old freshman killed a fellow student before turning the gun on himself.
- 2014 – Marysville-Pilchuck High School (Marysville, Washington): A student opened fire in the cafeteria, killing 4 classmates before taking his own life.
- 2018 – Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (Parkland, Florida): 17 students and staff killed as chaos unfolded in hallways and classrooms.
- 2018 – Santa Fe High School (Santa Fe, Texas): 10 people killed, most of them teenagers.
- 2021 – Oxford High School (Oxford, Michigan): A 15-year-old gunman killed 4 classmates and injured 7 others.
- 2022 – Robb Elementary School (Uvalde, Texas): 19 children and 2 teachers killed while desperate parents waited outside.
- 2023 – Covenant School (Nashville, Tennessee): 3 nine-year-old students and 3 staff members killed by a shooter with military-style weapons.
And those are just the ones that made national headlines. There are countless other schools where shots rang out, sometimes leaving a single child dead, sometimes two, but always leaving behind lifelong scars. Each one of those “smaller” incidents was still a world-ending tragedy for the families involved.
The scale varies, but the outcome doesn’t. Children are gone. Families are broken. Communities carry scars for generations. And every time it happens, we say “never again,” only to watch it happen again.
Why the Reactions Feel So Different
When a public figure is killed, we see it as a symbolic attack on society. It sparks outrage because it feels like democracy itself is under threat. But when children are killed in schools, the tragedy is often framed as isolated, even though it is part of a long and undeniable pattern. The truth is, we’ve grown numb. The shock we felt after Columbine has dulled under the weight of repetition. School shootings have become “normal” in America and this is a phrase that should chill us to the bone.
There’s also the way our media culture works. Famous names attract attention. They already come with a story people recognize, which makes coverage easier to package. But kids in classrooms don’t have a platform. Their stories are brand new, cut short before they can even begin. And sadly, many Americans have become so overwhelmed by the frequency of these events that they turn away rather than lean in.
What America Can Do
We are not powerless. Other countries have faced mass shootings and acted swiftly. Australia passed sweeping reforms after a single massacre in 1996. The United Kingdom imposed strict controls after schoolchildren were murdered in Dunblane. Both countries have not seen repeated tragedies on the scale the United States endures every year. The difference is that they treated children’s lives as more valuable than gun lobby talking points.
Here in America, we can start with common sense:
- Comprehensive background checks and licensing. No one should be able to buy a firearm without a full vetting process that includes training, fingerprinting, and waiting periods.
- Red flag laws. Families and police need the ability to remove firearms temporarily from people who pose a danger to themselves or others.
- Safe storage laws. Guns should be locked, unloaded, and kept away from children. Adults should be held accountable when unsecured weapons fall into young hands.
- Stronger support in schools. More counselors, intervention programs, and threat assessment teams to identify kids in crisis before tragedy unfolds.
- Community violence prevention. Investing in programs that mediate conflicts and provide alternatives for at-risk youth reduces violence before it reaches school doors.
These are not radical measures. They are steps backed by research and supported by a majority of Americans. What’s missing isn’t solutions. It’s the political will to act.
A Call for Equal Outrage
The death of Charlie Kirk was tragic, and the reaction to it made clear how much attention we can give when we choose to. This Sunday, churches across America spoke his name, lifting him up in prayer and remembrance. But if our pulpits can speak up for a public figure, they should also speak up for the children we continue to lose in classrooms. Faith leaders can call for more than comfort. They can call for courage, and they can demand action to protect the youngest among us.
If we can flood the airwaves for one man, we can also flood them for children. If we can organize vigils and write think pieces for a single loss, we can do it for dozens of young lives stolen from schools. Outrage is a choice, and so is action.
Every child deserves to come home from school. Every parent deserves to trust that when they hug their kid goodbye in the morning, they will hug them again in the afternoon. If we can’t muster the same urgency for kids that we do for public figures, then we’ve lost sight of what really matters. The question isn’t whether America can do something about school shootings but whether we finally care enough to try.
Because in the end, the measure of a country isn’t how loudly it mourns its famous. It’s how fiercely it protects its children.
Charlie Kirk Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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