On the afternoon of Tuesday, November 30, the Oakland County Police Department received more than one hundred 911 calls after a 15-year-old student opened fire at Michigan’s Oxford High School, leaving four students dead and seven other people– including a staff member–injured. Police and ambulance sirens replaced what should have been school bells as they rushed onto the scene. 

Ethan Crumbley, a student at Oxford, faces multiple charges as an adult, including one count of terrorism causing death, four counts of first-degree murder, twelve counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony, and seven counts of assault with intent to murder after carrying out the horrific events at Oxford High School. Along with Ethan, his parents were also taken into custody and charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter.

On the day before the shooting, a disturbed teacher reported that she saw the now-suspect using his phone to look up photos of firearms and ammunition during class. Crumbley claimed that shooting sports are a family hobby and he and his mother recently attended a shooting range. 

On the day of the shooting, another teacher reported that she witnessed Ethan illustrating unsettling drawings and written phrases during class. After another meeting with school officials, he claimed that his drawings were for a video game he was designing and that he intended to pursue video game design as a future career. 

The student’s parents refused to take their child home after this incident, and the school counselors decided to allow him to return to his regularly scheduled day– a decision they would soon regret as Crumbley allegedly had the firearm that he used in the shooting in his backpack during the meeting. 

The shooter began to fire during the time allotted for students to go to their next class. The student body and staff members reacted efficiently, as they immediately piled into classrooms and locked the doors, made barricades with resources in the classroom, and grabbed common school supplies such as scissors and calculators to use as protection in case the shooter gained access to the room.

My Tiktok “For You Page” is now filled with videos made by survivors of the Oxford shooting. Their point of view on what happened that day makes this story more than just a news headline. The posts they are sharing of their own experience, grief, and remembrance provide insight into the immense amount of pain that they are going through.

It is unspeakably sad that young adults should have to make these posts about a tragedy that should have never happened in the first place. 

What started off as a normal day for students resulted in the deadliest shooting at a US K-12 campus since May 2018. Is it naïve to think that the U.S. should have already figured out how to prevent such school shootings since the incidents at the high schools of Columbine, Sandy Hook, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and Sante Fe, which span the course of 23 years? Why are they still occurring today? Why has this bloodshed been allowed to harden into normality in our culture?

And why does it not prompt greater national self-reflection to consider that school shootings in the U.S. are far more frequent than they are in other developed countries?

All of the signs were there to prevent the shooting at Oxford, as Crumbley exhibited worrisome behavior. The school did act appropriately in calling him in for questioning both the day before and the day of the shooting. However, school officials should have searched him. They should have demanded his parents to take him home. 

The semiautomatic pistol that Ethan Crumbley used during the shooting was bought by his father on Black Friday, four days prior. It’s shocking to consider how easy it was for Crumbley to obtain a weapon that is advertised for use in the military and law enforcement and then take it to school to harm his classmates.

The shooting has prompted the lawmakers in the state of Michigan to look deeper into the state’s weapon accessibility laws. While Democrats are calling for stricter gun control, some Republicans believe that law-abiding gun owners will be treated unjustly.

But with each new tragedy, it gets harder to ignore common sense: eliminate the gun, eliminate the shooting. It starts with enforcing tighter gun control laws. According to The Atlantic, deaths from firearms are significantly lower in states with stricter gun control legislation. 

But rational gun control legislation faces a steep challenge.. As explained from data collected from the Small Arms Survey, “Americans make up less than 5 percent of the world’s population, yet they own roughly 45 percent of all the world’s privately held firearms.”

It is a bizarre reality that American students have to undergo active shooter drills as often as we do. Sure, it is important to do so in order to be prepared for the worst. However, it is horrifying that we have to do them at all. Instead, we should be preventing shootings from happening at all. School is meant for learning, not lockdown. 

Oxford Township is mourning and grieving the four lives lost on that horrendous day: Madisyn Baldwin, 17; Hana St. Juliana, 14; Justin Shilling, 17, and Tate Myre, 16.

Madisyn had just transferred to the school that year. She was to graduate next year and had already been accepted into many colleges, some with a full-ride scholarship due to her academic accomplishments.

Hana was the youngest victim. This year being her first year of high school. She was a beloved member of Oxford’s volleyball and basketball teams. 

Justin was a senior who planned to graduate next year. He was co-captain of Oxford’s bowling team and a member of the golf team.  He was also a  employee at three jobs. 

Tate was an honor student as well as a linebacker and tight end on the Oxford football team. He is remembered as not only a great person and classmate, but also as a hero because he attempted to disarm the shooter to save the lives of other students. There is currently a petition going around to change the school’s football stadium name to the “Tate Myre Stadium.”

It is important not only to strengthen our advocacy for sensible gun control legislation but also to remember the victims of each senseless shooting and to celebrate their lives. May they rest in peace.

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Editors’ note: All opinions expressed on The Uproar are a reflection solely of the beliefs of the bylined author and not the journalism program at NASH.  We continue to welcome school-appropriate comments and guest articles.