For the first time in my life, I’m living somewhere other than Philadelphia. I’m now a freshman at Yale University, in New Haven, Connecticut. It’s exciting yet scary to be living somewhere new and unknown. But preparing for college and moving away has also been an eye opening experience. It’s made me realize that some of the things I consider normal are not normal to other kids my age. Like the constant anxiety that a shooting could happen at any moment at or around school.
School shootings have sadly become all too normalized. There have been at least 104 school shootings in Pennsylvania from 1970 - 2024, impacting rural, suburban, and urban communities. Some may tell us to accept this as a fact of life, but we shouldn’t — look at my new home of Connecticut, one of the states with the strongest gun laws and the lowest rates of gun violence.
Last year, while at Yale for a two-week summer program, I remember walking through the streets of New Haven with my friends, when I suddenly heard loud popping sounds. I quickly pulled them around the corner and yelled “get down.” It was a natural – but sad – survival mechanism I’ve developed growing up in Philadelphia. But they and others around us looked at me in confusion. The popping sounds I heard were not gunshots, as I was accustomed to at home, but rather fireworks, harmlessly lighting up the summer sky.
Fast forward to this Spring’s admitted students day at Yale. As we all considered where we’d spend the next four years, one of the biggest concerns was safety — a local shooting had injured two people that very day. The safety of the city surrounding our school became a big conversation point. But when people asked if the shooting made me afraid to go to school there, I laughed.
This one shooting in New Haven was on the heels of four separate shootings in as many days in Philadelphia. Four shootings that left three people dead and 10 students my own age injured. The violence at home has left me desensitized to violence in Connecticut. My peers' reactions of shock and fear confused me. While they had never been exposed to the threat of gun violence, it was and continues to be a part of my life, both around my school and in my broader community.
The ever-presence of gun violence in Pennsylvania is not a random accident. It’s evidence of our politicians’ failures. A failure to put in place basic pillars of a gun safety system that evidence shows will drive down rates of gun violence in and around our schools. Things like a safe firearm storage law to stop children from getting easy access to guns that can be used in schools. Or universal background checks to stop prohibited purchasers from buying AR-15-style rifles, the weapon of choice for mass shootings. Or Extreme Risk Protection Orders (often called “red flag laws”) to disarm people who are at-risk of committing school shootings. Or requiring the reporting of lost or stolen firearms to stop the flow of illegal guns that end up in the hands of youth.
These policies are widely popular across a broad swath of Pennsylvanians – including gun owners and conservatives. Our lawmakers’ refusal to take action is morally indefensible while so many Pennsylvania children die and are injured by preventable shootings.
I got into college by writing essays about my involvement in gun violence prevention advocacy. My family wanted to throw a block party in honor of my going away to college, but our permit was denied because there is still an ongoing murder investigation from a shooting the next block over several months ago.
So when people asked me if a shooting near the school made me afraid to go there, I laughed. Gun violence has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Even though gun violence is an ongoing national issue, I’m glad to be attending school in Connecticut. I’m happy to now enjoy what has become a luxury – knowing that the sounds coming from my window as I sleep are fireworks, not gunfire. And all the while pushing my home state’s lawmakers to take urgent action to make my friends and family back home safer.
Cayla Waddington is a lifelong Philadelphia resident and a youth advisor on the board of CeaseFirePA Education Fund, the Commonwealth’s gun violence prevention organization.
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