This view column was submitted by Melissa Siig, a mother of 3 and a Tahoe Town resident.
Pricey student,
I know you at the time had dreams of finding out abroad in the United States, of becoming immersed in the tradition you have arrive to admire from our movies and Tv displays that we export overseas. You considered you would appear to America to master English, to are living in close proximity to the sunny beaches of California or the bustling towns of New York or Chicago. You assumed you would occur listed here to knowledge the newness and openness of America, to live in the nation of Hollywood and Silicon Valley, of Wall Avenue and Disneyland, of Harvard and UCLA, of soccer online games and prom queens and kings.
Sadly, I am below to explain to you a single factor: Do not appear. It is not protected here. We simply cannot protect you. Our educational facilities have been sacrificed to the altar of guns.
I was a international trade pupil when I was 16. I invested 6 months dwelling with a host family members and going to high faculty on the west coast of France. I am now 50 yrs outdated and to this working day I nevertheless benefit the amazing experience I had residing and researching abroad. I came again to the states fluent in French and with a increased understanding of a further place, Europe and how the globe sights my very own country.
Nowadays, I would explain to all possible overseas trade college students and their mom and dad – do not decide The usa. Our educational institutions are not safe. Gun violence is now the leading induce of demise for little ones and adolescents in the U.S., surpassing automobile accidents and drug overdoses. We have experienced 27 school shootings this calendar year by yourself, and the yr is only 50 percent about.
If you want to find out English, decide on Canada or Australia or the British isles. After suffering from mass shootings, these countries took decisive action like banning assault weapons, necessitating qualifications checks and a waiting time period to invest in guns, and instituting a gun amnesty program. These international locations have seen couple of to no mass shootings due to the fact. The U.S., on the other hand, has had extra mass shootings than any other place in the planet since 2009, there have been 274 mass shootings in The usa.
So tell me, dear student, do you really want to appear to the U.S. to analyze? Do you actually want to go to school in a country that values its guns much more than its young children? Do you want to live in a region exactly where soon after a mass shooting that killed 19 harmless university little ones and two teachers the NRA still considered it was a good strategy to keep its yearly convention just 300 miles from the place the massacre took position?
I, for one, do not. And but I truly feel helpless to modify our gun rules, I sense helpless to struggle versus a gun lobby that has these a restricted grip on this nation that not even the dying of young children, above and about and about yet again, does anything to go the needle on wise gun handle legislation. Expensive student — do you know that The united states has a legislation that shields gun producers from lawsuits? We, as citizens who desperately want to protect our personal little ones and loved ones, currently do not have the proper to sue firearm organizations from their deadly contribution to mass shootings.
Dear foreign trade pupil — do not occur to America. Our faculties are not protected. Our grocery merchants and bars and live performance halls are not harmless. We are not able to guard you. We have preferred instead to protect the appropriate to bear arms in excess of all else, even over the most innocent and important amongst us, our small children.
Melissa Siig is the mom of three kids — two in high college and just one in middle faculty — and life in Tahoe Metropolis, California. She has been a journalist and editor for 20 many years.
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