 I use she, her pronouns, and I'm in eighth grade. Hi, I'm Zachary Henningson. I use he, him, and I'm in seventh grade. Welcome to All Things LGBTQ Plus Youth Edition. The date is the 19th of February, 2018. Today we're talking about the raising of the flag at the Montpelier High School, the Black Lives Matter flag. Get into that. What do you have to say about that, Zach? I think it's a lot of progress, and the club, the Black Lives Matter club at the high school is doing a lot of really good work, and I'm really glad that it happened because that's a good thing. Yeah, and it was really cool just to see the fact that these kids were able to make this change. It wasn't like the adults or anything. When I read the letter that they sent to the school board, and it was really professional, I'm really well-written, and it was great to see students making such a big change in that sense, and it's also really good that it kind of brings pride to us as a fact that we're a part of that community, like we're a part of the Montpelier community, and I'm gonna attend that high school, and we're the first public high school to do it in America, and it's gonna be really cool to be able to attend it and walk by it every day. Yeah, and I think they've caused a few other schools to start to plan on that, which is really good. U32 and the, one of the Burlington High Schools, I don't know if there's more than one, but that's really good, progress is great. And when you walk around downtown, now you see a bunch of churches that have the Black Lives Matter flag up. I went to school today, and all, like loads of the staff members were wearing a Black Lives Matter shirt, and it was just really great to see because it just proves that we are making progress and that humans can be accepting. Yeah, and it's a huge step ahead, and that's great. I think it's great that they did it. It probably would have been better to do it sooner, but the fact that they did it is awesome. And the fact that it's now waiting other schools to do it, and maybe eventually, loads of schools across America will have these flags up, and people will be able to walk into school and feel safe, and like colored students will be able to walk in and feel safe seeing that flag up there, and not maybe feel slightly less discriminated against, even though it might not completely stop bullying, it might just help some people feel like, okay, I have a place here. Like I know a flag isn't gonna stop students from bullying other students, it's not gonna stop kids from being mean, but it's progress essentially, it's a step towards a better future. Speaking of safety in schools, there's been some recent events, the school shooting in Florida that brought up a lot of questions that should have been answered or acted upon a while ago, but about gun control and safety in school, and all that stuff. Yeah, I think there's been around 18 school shootings in the year, and it's only February, really two months into the school year, which is an insane amount. It's like, you wouldn't expect there to be that many, but there already are. Like when I was younger, I would assume, okay, he'd maybe in an entire year, that's still not good, but it's slightly better, now it's become, in two months, 18 school shootings, and it just really brings into question, as students, is anyone safe in school? Like what could we do to make school savers like school safer? Yeah, more about like gun control and stuff, definitely limiting act or completely removing access to people on getting firearms. I understand some people do need firearms for food or stuff like that. Yeah. I personally, in an ideal world, I would believe that civilians shouldn't have firearms, and I understand military needs it, of course, because wars are always gonna be happening, that's never gonna stop, but you obviously don't live in an ideal world that some people can't afford to go to the grocery store and buy themselves meat to feed their family, so they go out hunting, which is a really big thing if you're a lot of people hunt, and to do that, they own firearms, and those firearms, they are designed to kill humans, but they could, and it's so easy to buy a gun. Like I walked into a camping store with my dad once, I think he was, we were buying like fishing poles or something, and I just walked in and I saw rows upon rows of guns, and I was still really young, and I was like, wow, those are killing machines, and I didn't really know what that really meant, but like now I do, and I'm like, that's a lot of things that could potentially end a human life. Yeah. There are so many of them. I think there was recently a gun show in Burlington, I don't really know what that was about, and I don't really understand why, why would you need to show off guns? But again, I do believe that we shouldn't, civilians shouldn't have guns, but that's not gonna happen, but since we can't do that, we should at least limit it and make it a harder process, and maybe a more in-depth background check to see if they've ever done anything with a criminal record, or if they've abused substances or anything like that, and then not sell them the gun. It should, yeah, it might even be like a week long process or even longer, just so it's really hard, so most people will be like, I'm not gonna do that, because most people will just be like, yeah, I'm not going through all that. Or I think, I don't know exactly, I don't know the details of buying weapons or firearms, it's really easy. I think at one point you required a license to get it, and I think that's good still, but how easy is it to get the license or? I don't know if we still have those license in Vermont, at least. So maybe we could integrate some kind of form of license to be able to own a gun and make that license hard to get. So I just think you should have, first off, I think you should have a reason. I don't think you could just go in and be like, hey, give me a gun. And that guy's like, okay, I think you should have to present a reason, I think you should have to present a license and identification so that in a background check, so proof I'm not gonna misuse this, I'm only gonna use this for recreational purposes or hunting, and I'm not gonna use this to hurt fellow human beings. And this can also, gun control can also kind of be contributed to the school students and how easy it is for people to get guns. Like, students were able to get guns and go in and shoot fellow students. Like, and how, is there like an age restriction? I'm not very knowledgeable on this. I think the person who, the shooter of the Florida High School, I think they were 17, and I don't think they bought the gun, I think they got it from their family or something. And I know that they had had history of mental illness and apparently a lot of the students reported them to the police, but nothing happened because of the fact that they probably just brushed it off because it's like, oh, they're just kids, no one would do something like that. Yeah, and what you said about families owning guns, some people will make the argument that, oh, I own the gun to protect my family, but there are ways to protect your family without owning a gun. Like, my father, he sits with the metal bat next to his bed, or he used to, now it's in the garage. But there are still ways to, or you could install like safe houses, like there are technology coming out that protects your home and your family, instead of owning a firearm. And I know there are some people who will sleep with a knife next to them. Like, that's not safe, but it's still better than having an automatic killing machine, in my opinion. I can't kill as many people. Yeah, and I wouldn't be as fast as a gun either. I think, I saw that, again, I don't know how accurate the information is, but I saw that all the past big school shootings have all been the same kind of weapon, like some sort of firearm that fires fast enough. Because if you've seen videos of the school and you can hear the gunshots in the background, it's a lot of... And that's the thing, that guns are, they're deadly and they're fast. And you can kill many people in minimal amount of time, by the time you did what you wanted to do and killed these students, you could be out of there. It's just, it's so quick. It's just, bang, you're done. Yeah. Which, obviously, isn't right for people to have, because it's so easy. And this can also be like, as a student, I know that our school has lockdowns, in case something like this happens, where it's like, we turn off the lights and we go and we hide in the corner where there are no windows, no doors, and we lock and picture if they can, locks the door. But, personally, I don't think that's enough. I also don't think that students take that seriously enough. There's so many kids just think, oh, where am I at, nothing's bad's gonna happen here, when something bad did happen at the high school. Like, I'm sitting there and I have my phone out and I'm like, well, I'm holding my phone because it's my baby. And I'm sitting there and I hear these kids just playing games or making jokes in the middle of a lockdown. Like, even if it's drill, they don't know it's a drill. And they're putting my safety and everybody else's safety at risk, because they can't shut up and sit quiet for two minutes. Yeah, and with the drills, I watched a while ago, I watched, it wasn't really a documentary, but it was like a news report or something on people from the military kind of training teachers a little bit. I think I saw that as well. Yeah. I like the idea, I'm honest. Like, I don't like the idea of teachers owning guns, because obviously I don't think anyone should own guns. Because then students would have access to it, isn't it? But I still think like training a teacher in defense and self-defense and how to take down an attacker, someone's there or how to disarm them would be better than having to just be there sitting ducks in case they want to come in. Like also, it's not that hard to break down into my opinion. They could probably get in, even with luck, there are ways to get in. Yeah, people were in the, some of it I heard from the Florida shooting, they were shooting through the door, and that still hit some students. I don't think it was like life threatening for that, but it's still. Because it's close to bullet down. Yeah. The thing is, and I get passionate about this topic, the thing is, kids are dead and nothing has been done. 18 shootings in a year, not that much has been done. There have been past shootings, nothing has been done. And children who have barely lived are dead. Even if an adult, even if they are on the older side, they're still dead, nothing's been done. Teachers, kids, dead, nothing. It's just, it's like, when is it gonna stop, in my opinion, when are people gonna be like, crap, this is happening, we should do something, or make it harder to get guns. Yeah, and like, just saying, oh, you have my prayers and condolences. Yeah, I see that so much. I mean, thank you for being sorry, even though, like. Thank you for being sorry, but you're still not doing anything. You're still not doing anything. I think some of the politicians got paid from the NRA or something, the, I don't know the acronym, but it's like the gun control or like, yes. And there was a recent like thing at the state house where hundreds would come in and they would argue their points, I saw something about that. And again, I understand that people need guns, their points where you need guns, cause you can't afford to go to the grocery store and buy food for your family. But I still don't think that it should be so easy to go into a school and kill students. And also I don't think, I think that even in safe places, like even in Montpelier, where you wouldn't expect anything to happen, we still need to take extra measures. Like we have a door where the people who work in the office see who's coming in, we have cameras all over the school. But in the event of someone coming in, I doubt many students, and we have pretty young students in our school, I doubt many of them know what to do or like, cause they know what to do in the drill, but in a real situation, the drill is not gonna do much. Like follow the rules, but still if you need to, if you need to do something, you gotta, you have to like, we don't know really how to evacuate. The only evacuations are the main doors and a side door to we have two side doors and a main door. That's the only way to get into another school. So if it's still, we don't know the correct evacuation measures cause when we evacuate for a fire drill, it's like a stampede of students running down. Then that's not that stealthy if there's a shooter in the school. Yeah, that's what the, I think the Florida shooter, that's what they did. They tried to evacuate? They like, they turned on the fire alarm so students would go in the hallways. And at that point when you're in a school and there's a shooter there, you're basically a sitting duck, if you don't. And if it is a student who is shooting at people, they have knowledge of the drills. They have knowledge of how it's supposed to work. And the door doesn't do anything cause the office, the office people are like, oh, hey, I know that kid, I've talked to that kid, I've talked to that kid's parents. They're probably here for school, let's let them in. Yeah. And I'd like, there's no check if for the door too. But I also, I saw a lot of videos to these schools who took it to the same extreme where they would have police officers come in the drill and fire off fake guns and like sound, sounds of guns to scare the students. I don't think school should be doing that cause that could traumatize kids. But I do think that extra measures needs to be taken. At this point, there have been 18 in one year. It could happen anywhere, the United School, no matter how safe the town seems to be. And that can also go into what happened at the high school a while ago from what I know of, man, Rob the bank then fled to the high school and was threatening people with, I believe it was fake gun but they didn't know that at the time. And like, I got a text from my sister and she was like, Jules, are you okay? Cause she thought someone else was there at the middle school. And then I was like, holy hell, what's happening at my sister's school? Is she okay? Is our other students okay? Is she probably terrified? Is she safe? And I don't even, and that's terrifying to have to go through if you are at the school or if you're sibling or your parents work at the school. It's terrifying to see, oh my God, my sister could potentially die even if now that we know it's a fake gun. Yeah. And like, I don't think any extra precautions have been taken at the high school since. Nothing's changed there now. And it's like, even though no one died except for the gunman, still nothing happened. And even though no one died, no one's really taking it into precaution and realizing it could happen in Montpelier. Yeah, and I feel like a lot of people have just kind of forgotten about that specifically in Montpelier. And people have just become more and more desensitized to like hearing about school shootings. Like some people are really affected. But like, sorry to interrupt you, but like you see kids and it's like, like I know people who see on their phones, sigh, get upset for like two minutes and they just become so desensitized and they just forget. And it's like, oh, there's another one. I'm upset, let's move on. And again, kids are dead, nothing's being done. And it also makes students feel unsafe. Like if I have to walk into a school every day and not feel safe, it's gonna make it harder for me to focus. It's gonna worsen my education and it's gonna probably be traumatic for some students. Like, if you no longer feel safe in a place where you spend most of your time and you no longer feel safe surrounded by your peers because you know anything can happen at any moment, all these kids can be dead with a fast killing machine. Yeah, like you said earlier about the drill where they took it to the extreme with the person like firing fake bullets or whatever, like outside of the doors. I think that if they knew it was a drill, it would have been a little more acceptable but the fact that they didn't know it was a drill, it's still, it's still really good thing. The hero bullets sound terrifying. Yeah, and like in the school place, which is supposed to be safe. It's like, again, I spend more time with my teachers and my peers than I do with my family now. Cause like when I get older that would probably be different. But still, now I'm always with these people. And if I don't feel safe, it's not good. It's terrifying. Cause again, I walk in and I know that anyone can die today because anyone can walk in and start shooting kids cause anyone can get a gun. And it's just, it's all connected and it's all terrifying. Actually, again, what really bothers me is nothing's being done. Like people will discuss it. But then people become, again, like you said, so desensitized to it. It's like, oh, another school shooting. What the hell are you gonna do? Yeah, and my mother, she thought that we were gonna have like an assembly or something to like talk about it. We didn't have one for when the person was at the high school. I don't think we've had ones for when the other shootings happened in the US. The only thing that's offered to us in our school is that counselors. So for the photo shooting, we were parents got a mask tattooed, like counselors are available. But I don't really want or need a counselor. I need something to be done. So I can walk into school and not feel like, hey, I might die today. My friend might die today. Who knows? There's no guarantee. Yeah. And like, again, having an assembly, raising awareness. Like, even if it's just for like the seventh and eighth graders, because they understand it better. I hate that. When I think younger kids don't understand this stuff. Yeah. I mean, there's, sometimes they don't. Like, they can't understand some things, but it's still important to tell them. To tell them in a way that you think is acceptable. So our school, there's something called the shelter in place, where if you stay in the classroom when you're staying in the school, and that was called over the loudspeaker. And I looked over for my teacher, and she looked at me, and she was like, what the hell does that mean? She didn't say hell, because she's a professional. She's like, what does that mean? And I was like, you don't know? You don't know the proper drills? When you're supposed to protect, you're supposed to take care of these students and you don't know the proper drills. Yeah. What? Sorry, what? Like not telling the teachers? Yeah, not telling the teachers. Has she been there? Is she there at the school for multiple years? No, she's a new teacher, but still. If this was a real thing, I don't believe it was a real thing, I'm not sure. But if it was a real thing, and she knows the drills and she was like, oh, shelter in place, that means lockdown, or that means evacuate. I don't know why she would think that. Someone could be put in danger, but these teachers or students not being educated about these proper drills. Yeah, during the shelter in place, one of these students in my classroom, they went out into the hallway to get a drink of water. Now you can do that. Oh yeah. Shelter in place is so clarifying. They told us to stay in the classrooms. Clarification, no. Shelter in place is we cannot leave the school. We're in the building, no one's allowed on the playground, we stay in the school. You can still be in the hallway. There was this girl who went out in the hallway because of part of my class. She went out in the hallway before the announcement came on and she just sat there like, what do I do? And she went into a different, I think she went into a different classroom and she was like, hey, what do I do? And the teacher was like, oh, you could stay in here because that teacher didn't know it meant that you could still be in the school. So that girl just missed a chunk of her math class, which again makes it harder for her to get a proper education. Yeah. And I think, so we normally, I feel like every shelter in place is organized, so it's not during gym class, at least that's how it was like during gym or lunch. That's how it was for me in a different school that I was up. I don't think we have shelter in place or I don't think we have a drill specifically during lunch. I think we had the shelter in place because someone threw up in the hallway. But I think we should practice, have a drill like at lunch, have a drill outside. We're trying to get students to take them seriously. Yeah. Again, like what I was thinking before, how kids are giggling with their friends, they're playing games on their iPhones, they're rock paper scissors. I look over them and I'm like, do you realize what you're doing? Like do you understand that you are putting me at risk and everyone else at risk? Like it's your own choice if you wanna go out and put yourself at risk. Go ahead, I'm gonna try to stop you but I can't control what you do. But when it comes to putting the rest of us in danger, just be quiet for a few minutes. And they just think, oh, it's the drill. When we have no indication when it's a drill or not in our school, we never know. Unless she specifically says it's a drill. We never know. And these kids are just laughing about it. And I'm like, we could have died. You don't know. We could be about to die in two seconds. You don't know. Stop playing rock paper scissors. Yeah. And the fact, I think locking the door. So in the school that we are in, they don't always lock the door because it makes like a sound or something. I don't really know. Jesus Christ. I think since they, if they're going to the school, they know there are people in the school because it's a school day and there's cars outside. That's why people go there. They wanna kill a lot of people. Yeah. I don't think the sound of a lock, like sure it'll alert the classroom but I think the lock itself is more important than the safety of the students. Well, if not unlocking, if keeping the door unlocked, that's less important than safety of the students. But also, we're not allowed to have our phones in school. It's just not, I think that a lot of kids do, but we're not allowed to, especially like in lockdowns, you leave everything, you go. And if I can't have my phone on me and my teacher's away from the classroom phone, and it's real, who's gonna call 911? Who's gonna alert parents that, hey, you know, I can die? I think the office would probably call. But the office is also in lockdown. Well, I think they'd call. If there's someone on the premises, like I think we'd hear a gunshot if someone got shot. And I think that would be- Yeah, at that point we shouldn't be able to have our phones in call 911. Even if they're still coming, call them again. I think multiple calls is not always like calling the multiple times is not gonna change anything. I know, but it can also provide safety. Like it can also make the kids feel better. Yeah. It's like to know, hey, I'm not really helpless in this situation. I could potentially do something or my teacher could potentially do something. And I'm not just a sitting duck, you feel helpless. If this was like, even in drills, I still feel helpless. Cause it's like, I'm just sitting here, it might be real, I don't know. You feel like you can't do anything. My personal experience, I don't know if that's like it for everyone. How they have it, I think we can't have our phones out. At least that's how it is, like I keep my phone in my pocket just because- We're not, we're not meant to have it at all. We're meant to be at our lockers. Well, I don't think, I don't know. I think it's important to have some form of communication in a case of emergency. I'm like when my sister texted me like I said a while ago, even though it was still terrifying cause I just, it was happening there, I knew, okay, she was well enough to text me this. That provides me some comfort to, so that I know, even if she's entered, she was able to text me a message and she's able to communicate with people and not just sit there. Yeah. It's like, again, I've said this a lot, but you're sitting, you're a sitting duck. It's just, what do you do? What do you do? We don't know what we're supposed to do because we haven't been taught what we're supposed to do. Yeah. In a classroom, it was not in my classroom, but in a certain classroom, they were given rocks to throw. I was in that classroom. We painted rocks, I put a creepy ass face on mine so it would scare the person and if anyone comes to the room and they walk out, we chuck our rocks at them and I love that. Yeah. The problem with that, you could draw attention to yourself, but I mean, because if you throw a rock and everyone throws it at once, it's not gonna draw attention. Yeah, but say you're a person coming in and you're gonna kill a bunch of youth kids and you're just pelting with creepy ass rocks and then by the time they're either injured or dazed, what I would consider doing is, sorry, I'm getting off track, but it also provided the kids some comfort because again, it was like, we're not completely helpless. We have these rocks, but there are precautions, like students could be taught to take in an event of a lockdown, bear a kid's door with your desk so we could move our desks, they're grasping to throw. We weren't taught any of that. This was just a singular teacher who was like, hey kids, let's play some rock and throw at people. But if we were taught as a school in an event of a lockdown, grab a heavy book, grab your textbook, grab anything you could throw, that would A, you would be more protection and B, it would provide the kids some comfort. Yeah, and like the little film that I was talking about, about the thing, I think they had one where it wasn't the students, but it was a group of teachers like tried to resist against like a trained agent or something. I had to watch the video. Yeah, and it worked, like they all threw tennis balls at the person and then another time they tackled them. I feel like maybe it should, I feel like if it's a life or death situation and like if you're just sitting there, you're probably gonna have the same chance of being shot if a group of people is... But like say a group of people tackled them and like get into the floor. Yeah, that's good. Then the rest of the people can leave, maybe call line one one, and if they can hold them there long enough for the police officers to get there, Then take the firearm away. Guess what? No one died, hopefully. And like if you take the firearm away and like in the video, teachers were taught how to carefully remove the firearm without hurting anyone. Yeah. I honestly, from the point I just wanted to go home here is kids are dead, nothing was done. Yeah. I think we should wanna end it there. Thank you for watching.