We have a very special Guest Poster joining us today. Kharizma is a high school student, who participated in a school walkout for the seventeen victims of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.

She is also Christin’s daughter.

Whether you agree or not with her words, she has a voice and we owe it to her to hear them.

My Turn
By: Karizma Crider

I’ve always been into politics but have always gotten the “you’re too young” or “15-year olds don’t know about politics”. Well, now it’s my turn and time for adults to listen up.

My opinion and other teenagers’ opinions should be the only ones that matter when talking about school shootings, what adults have continually failed to realize is that when there is a threat our lives are at risk. When we go on lockdown we are the ones that are scared and hope to go home that day.

Once again what adults don’t know is that when we go into a lockdown we don’t know what’s going on, it could be just a threat or a shooter. Not even the teachers know what’s going on. The fear of “what if” continues like an echo in the cave and the relief of knowing that it’s over is the best news.

The most saddening of it is the hundreds of kids who never got the relief, who never got the best news. All they got was a bullet or a new-found fear of school. School is supposed to be safe. When parents send their kids to school they expect them to come back and recently on February 14, seventeen parents lost their kids and seventeen kids lost their life. 17 kids who had a future now don’t.

I walked out of school for those 17 kids. I stood outside in silence with my fellow peers in silence for those 17 kids. When I got back home (thankfully) all I saw was negativity from these adults telling us we should get suspended and even going as far as being called tide pod eaters. Someone explain to me how standing for 17 minutes in silence for 17 kids that lost their life is so bad to the point of grown men are calling us tide pod eaters, but we are the ones who need discipline. We are the issue right? The teenagers are the issue, but adults are coming up with every way to get out of gun regulation and it’s disgusting.

Why can no one just face the fact that we have a gun problem? Why is it so hard for adults to think about other people? I shouldn’t have to protest for my life I shouldn’t have to write this explaining why its crucial for gun regulations.

I shouldn’t feel scared in school.

*If you would like to do a Guest Post on Vodka Calling, please get in touch with us Here

* Follow Vodka Calling on Facebook Here

* Join our up and coming “Writers Helping Writers” Facebook group Here