One on One Interview: Gun Violence

On February 14th, 2018, Abby Fraker was in seventh grade, enjoying her dark chocolate covered fruits that she had made with her mother on a day that was supposed to be filled with love and tradition.

But the thought of and the meaning of Valentine’s Day changed when her mom tearfully told her that Nicholas Cruz had killed 14 students and 3 staff members with an AR-15 at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

“My heart dropped. It was such a weird moment for me. There are literal children dying and nobody is doing anything,” Fraker said.

The 18 year old, a senior at SBHS, now thinks about how students, especially ones that are just blooming, can and have been taken so easily with a gun. This makes her have mixed feelings about safety at school. She doesn’t want to dwell on the possibilities, but believes the chances of being in a school shooting aren’t taken seriously.

“Nobody ever thinks it can happen to them but then it does,” said Fraker. “For sure it’s a thought that crosses my mind, but I try not to think about it. I think all in all there are good safe precautions that have been taken and I hope that nothing will ever happen to that extent.”

She thinks the monthly active shooter drills are useful to a certain extent; the frequency to which the school has the drills desensitizes the students, but it also helps train the next shooter.

It saddens Fraker that schools need to prepare for an attack with a AR-15 and she wishes there was more regulation surrounding guns.

“I think of them as lollipops—there are so many of them and you can get them anywhere for cheap prices,” said Fraker. 

In addition to wishing there was less accessibility to guns,  she also thinks that background checks should be enforced, and that schools should be a more welcome and safe place.

“I am a really passionate mental health advocate and I feel like people should feel safe enough to talk about their issues in school without it being such an alarming issue,” said the senior.

That’s why Fraker is putting together a conversational film that gets different student’s perspectives on gun violence because at the end of the day everybody has something to say about it.

“I think it’s a really important topic to get everyone’s perspective on,” she said.  “I want to hear what people have to say and spread that around because we’ve been silenced for so long.”