When teaching me how to shoot, my grandpa told me to squeeze the trigger gradually, not too suddenly, and follow through, always follow through, and you will be an excellent shot.
He taught me to respect the power a gun holds, and all that it entails. Once you pull that trigger, there is no going back. He told me, don’t put your finger on the trigger until you are ready to pull it. Until you are sure.
I get off my bus after school and walk down and past street after street where shots have been fired. Blood has been spilled. Kids have been killed. Kids have been killers. Though the rain has washed away the evidence, the sidewalks still carry the memory.
These sidewalks many of us walk every day have forced innocent minds to realize that guns are no longer toys that shoot Styrofoam. We are not playing a childish game but rather playing with people’s lives.
This year alone, a 17-year-old and a 21-year-old have been killed by guns in Carrick, my Pittsburgh neighborhood. The person charged with shooting the 17-year-old is 14. Kids younger and younger are weaning from toys to weapons.
Today, I’m nearing the end of my freshman year of high school. I am 14 years old, the same age as some killers and living in a neighborhood in which murder is a reality.
When I was younger, I refused to even touch a gun because I was too scared. So rather than shooting with the rest of my family every time we went to visit, I helped my grandfather assemble the bullets they would later use. We measured out the powder, poured it into the casing, sealed it and placed it on the rack.
It was nice to have some part in what everyone else was doing — to be involved, though I wasn’t the one pulling the trigger.
It was interesting to see all the different steps that had to be completed before the bullet could fly from the gun. It takes a lot more than just the pull of a trigger to get to that point. Even those with access to both a firearm and ammunition, loaded and ready, have a series of steps they must first go through.
Everyone must prepare themselves for the consequences that come from the pull of the trigger. With guns so common and mental health so fragile, we have to keep an eye on each other.
Notice when they are measuring the powder. Notice when they are pouring it into the casing. Notice when they begin to withdraw from people. Notice when they seem dazed and distracted.
“Why is America near the top of the gun violence statistics?”
It could be a matter of days, hours, minutes or a second before the next ricochet through flesh and souls, the next news story, the next desolate aftertaste that you can’t seem to get rid of.
In Carrick, like many other neighborhoods, you might find a bullet casing lying on the ground. It poses the question: “What can we truly do about gun violence?” And we must also ask ourselves, “Why is America near the top of the gun violence statistics?”
Over the years, gun reform has become a very controversial topic typically split between two arguments. Always left or right. Black or white. For guns or against them.
But why do we have to choose one or the other when ethical answers are never that simple? Why does it always have to be all or nothing?
Some say guns aren’t the real problem, but rather the people — the holders of the guns. As someone who has grown up with firearms and now sees the damage they do, I can tell you: It’s both.
When I grew of age, both physically and mentally, to finally learn to shoot, my grandpa gifted me a gun that was once his father’s — my great-grandfather, from whom I received my middle name. Along with the family heirloom and my name, I inherited honor and respect.
I was taught to shoot the right way.
The one who pulls the trigger while aiming at another is at fault, but you wouldn’t blame a child for touching a heated stove that was sitting right in front of them. You give them resources, and they use them, whether it is in the right way or not.
One thing we can do is teach people the right way to use resources — where and when to shoot a gun, for instance, and the lifelong consequences that can result from a single second of their lives.
Violence often spreads like a hereditary disease. You are what you are exposed to. We must ensure that the new generation is correctly educated rather than just thrown out into the world to figure out for themselves that a heated stove will burn them, and that a gunshot will kill.
Again, my grandpa’s lessons flood back: Squeeze the trigger gradually and follow through. That is exactly what we need to do.
Gun violence cannot and will not be solved all at once with one new law, one new measure, one more story, one more article, one more person telling you what to do. It won’t be solved by this essay. No single person can fix the world — a reality that has been difficult for me to accept — but well-intentioned words and actions can bring us one step closer.
Guns are not the only cause of gun violence, but they’re not completely innocent either. Hurt people hurt people, but hurt people are also the only ones who can end the cycle.
If the people on both sides of this issue can realize not everything has to be left or right, black or white, we can work together, one step at a time to gradually pull the trigger of ending violence. We must not hesitate. We must follow through, wisely, before the next shooter does.
Kalilah Stein is an editorial intern with PublicSource and can be reached via firstperson@publicsource.org.
