The pure innocence that most children possess is truly beautiful. However, the world is not always the beautiful place we’d like it to be, and, unfortunately, that innocence almost always gets tainted.
For instance, one TikToker recently shared about a conversation that she had with her daughter, which started very wholesomely but ended with contemplations about the gun violence issues in the USA and the horrors that they sometimes bring, even to schools. Scroll down for the full story!
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Gun violence in the USA is at the point where children consider going through it at school a genuine possibility, and the thought of it is terrifying
Image credits: afmuscato
“Yesterday, I picked my eight-year-old daughter up from school”
“And before she was even fully in the car, she goes, ‘Mom, guess what? My teacher said that if you say yes, and the principal says yes, then Salsa can be our class pet.’ If you’re new here, Salsa is a 1000-pound American Quarter Horse. So not the most practical choice for a class.”
“Of course, the immediate question that follows is, ‘So, is it okay with you?’And in this moment, I really appreciate that the teacher passed the buck to both me and the principal because I know the principal has not yet been asked. So I can continue that trend. And so I say, ‘Of course! If your principal says it’s okay, of course, she can be a class pet.'”
Image credits: afmuscato
“That was the right answer”
“I was told that I am the best mom ever, and she immediately starts trying to make a plan for how she is going to convince her principal that this is a good idea. And so she says, ‘You know, I’ve bet a lot of other kids would like that, too. I should get a lot of other kids to ask her if Salsa can be the class pet. And instead, we make her like a school pet.'”
“I’m willing to pass the buck on this one to the principal, but I really like her principal. And so an attempt to help her out. I was like, ‘You know, kiddo, when a lot of people want something, you don’t typically all have them individually go to someone you write like one letter and then have them all sign it. And that’s called a petition.'”
“This was the greatest idea she’s ever heard of. So she immediately starts writing a letter that she is going to get all the kids in her school to sign advocating for her horse becoming the school pet.”
Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)
“When I say organizing, what I need you to understand about Ella Jo is that she has been no joke making to-do lists, and she was three years old”
“So she is in second grade, but she reads and writes at a fifth-grade level. So she was very literally, by the time we got home, writing a letter, drafting a letter, to get everyone to sign and then also had separate sheets of paper where she was making lists of all of her friends from after school in every grade, and what class they were in, so she could go to them and then have them take little short versions of the letter back to their classes and have everyone in their classes sign it so that she could literally reach every kid at the school.”
Image credits: afmuscato
“So I pointed out, too, ‘You’re gonna have to figure out the logistics of how this works'”
“‘You can’t just ask for something and not be able to explain how it’s going to work to people.’ So she start[ed] coming up with a sort of stall they could put outside her classroom, and if you made it movable, then it could move around the school and [where] Salsa [would] go during recess. A big part of this plan involves me hauling the horse back and forth at the beginning and end of every week. And I’m just, again, I’m just letting this plan roll at this point. Because this is the principal’s problem. This is no longer my issue.”
“By the time bedtime rolls around, this is a full-blown plan, and I’m forcing the kid to go to bed, and part of me is incredibly proud of the natural community organization that’s happening here, though I feel like that might backfire at some point for me as a parent. You want your kids to know how to organize, but maybe after they move out of your house.”
“But anyway, I’m also mildly concerned that some part of this is going to work, and the principal is going to be like, ‘Yeah, you can bring the horse for a day,’ and I’m gonna end up having to haul this friggin horse to school, but whatever. So I get her to go to bed. So we have succeeded for the day, for the moment. I’m still the greatest mom ever.”
Image credits: Dids . (not the actual photo)
“But then this morning, she gets up and walks out of her room and says, ‘Mom, I’ve been thinking about it'”
“‘And I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring Salsa to school as a class or school pet.’ And I said, ‘No? Why? What changed your mind?’ She said, ‘Well, I was thinking about it, and you can’t hide a horse in a closet, so I’ll have no way to keep her safe in an active shooter situation, and I don’t want her to die. So I think she probably needs to just stay at home.’ And then she went and put on her shoes and got her breakfast bar, and I just…”
Image credits: Feliphe Schiarolli (not the actual photo)
The woman in the video, going under the TikTok username @afmuscato, is Annie Muscato. She is a mother, co-parent, DIY farmer, leadership educator, and content creator with nearly 130,000 followers and over 5.2 million likes throughout her videos. Her content usually consists of light-hearted things from her everyday life, but one of her most recent viral videos, with more than 7.2 million views, was a little different from the others.
In the beginning, it started just as wholesomely as most of her other stories, with her daughter asking to bring her horse to become the class’s pet and developing a plan on how to achieve it. However, in the end, the girl decided to keep her friend at home, explaining that she couldn’t hide it if there ever were any active shooters in school, and the mom and the internet were left stunned.
Caught off guard by the story’s twist, many of the commenters felt just as heartbroken as the girl’s mother. People who live in the USA or other countries with similar gun laws were sadly relating and discussing this issue, sharing other similar stories, while those who don’t could only express their shock and empathy.
Check out the full TikTok video below:
@afmuscatoI dont have words or hashtags for this one♬ original sound – Annie Muscato
The gun violence issue in the past few years has risen to historical highs. While, according to Klara Alfonseca of ABC News, last year saw a slight decrease, there were still more than 40,000 people whose lives were taken and many more who were injured due to firearm-related incidents.
Of course, these numbers show more than just homicide shootings, as they also include accidents and people taking their own lives. On the other hand, part of them is made up of over 600 mass shootings, which are defined as incidents with 4 or more victims, which makes up for some terrifying numbers.
The saddest part is that nearly 2000 of all those who lost their lives to gun violence were children and teens. According to the Children’s Defense Fund, even those who weren’t affected by it directly are expressing fear about the horror of the possibility that something like this might happen in their school.
A survey made by this organization concluded that out of all the participants aged 6 to 17 years old, the worry of a school shooting was the second biggest fear on the list, with one-third of them saying they were worried something like this could happen in their school. The only thing ahead of it was bullying, which, while usually a lot less fatal, can also be a lot more common and persistent.
The kids deserve to live happily and with little worry, but instead, they’re now learning what to do when a person with a gun enters their school, and they start being taught that as early as elementary school.
Image credits: Jan Bouken (not the actual photo)
Unfortunately, coming back to the article by Klara Alfonseca of ABC News, not much is being done to prevent this, and most of the ideas suggested by the people in power seem to be trying to tackle the issue from the wrong direction, like placing armed guards in schools or issuing firearms to teachers instead of banning these horrendous weapons.
The majority of the current presidential candidates are also against any serious action regarding gun control, as most seem to be too afraid to mess with the Second Amendment at all. Only a few propose banning assault and automatic firearms or increasing gun safety in other ways.
So, in the end, to call this issue severe is an understatement. We’re at the point where some children in the USA, like the girl in the story, talk about school shootings so casually that they start to seem like a completely normal part of life, and the thought of that is horrifying. Is it really the kind of world anyone would want to live in?
What did you think about this story? What’s your stance on the gun laws in the USA? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
The commenters were shocked by the sudden twist, which made the story go from wholesome and funny to sad and thought-provoking
