In this op-ed, 16-year-old Natalie Barden, a junior at Newtown High School in Connecticut, explains why she fights for gun-violence prevention.
Nearly six years ago, my life was changed forever, in the worst way I could possibly imagine.
I was sitting in my fifth grade science class when a lockdown drill was announced, or at least we thought it was a drill. It lasted all day. When I arrived at my house after school, my older brother, James, and I were met by our parents, who told us to follow them upstairs.
I remember silently crying as I walked those steps. I didn’t know why I was crying, but after hearing my friends and neighbors talk of what had happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School that day, and seeing my parents’ faces, I knew what was coming. My parents told James and me that our younger brother, Daniel, had been murdered. He was seven years old, and had been shot to death in his first grade classroom by a gunman who killed 20 students and six educators. Though a long period of my life after that night is a blur, I still remember my brother and I screaming and crying, both in the utmost pain imaginable, as our destroyed parents told us this news.
After this, I never wanted to think about gun violence. I knew the importance of gun safety, and of course never wanted my tragedy to happen to anyone else, but as a kid, all I wanted was to be normal and not constantly reminded of my loss. I left the fighting to my dad, Mark, who started Sandy Hook Promise, confident that his efforts in gun-violence prevention would create the change that was needed.
But this year, I decided that I could no longer use these excuses. As much as I may want to be “normal,” I’m not. Unfortunately, I know what losing a loved one to gun violence feels like, and I think more should be done to prevent the lives of others from being shattered in that way. I started by joining a gun-violence prevention club, the Junior Newtown Action Alliance, and slowly tried to become more involved.
After Parkland happened in February, everything changed. The shooting at a Florida high school that left 17 students and staff dead shocked me. At first I didn’t even want to think about it because I knew it would be difficult to deal with, but eventually I forced myself to get even more involved. I went to more club meetings and agreed to more interviews and events, caring less about the pain it would cause me because I knew the importance of my voice. Parkland was a reminder that what happened in Newtown is still happening, and not nearly enough has changed in the almost six years between the two tragic events. The horror that my town felt, the pain that we all still feel, happened in another town, and I saw the teenagers down in Florida immediately speaking out for gun responsibility. It inspired me to do the same. I thought, if these kids are able to speak about this topic so soon after this tragedy, I can join them by adding my voice.
Now everything I do to fight gun violence I do to honor my brother and community, the Parkland victims and survivors, and anyone who has ever felt the pain and devastation caused by gun violence. I think that sometimes people expect victims of gun violence to be the vocal ones, but that can be unimaginably brutal. Each time I do an interview, I feel physically drained from the emotional toll, but standing together, among my peers, I see how strong we are.
I traveled to Washington, D.C., for the March for Our Lives in March and was moved beyond belief watching students my age battle for the change that needs to happen. It was a raw and emotional day, but overall an amazing experience, and one that actually gave me hope for the future. After watching my dad fight for this cause for so long, I was glad that this conversation was reaching new people in a different way. These students were creating a platform to reach more people and keep the topic relevant. After that march, I was afraid that people would forget the craze of activism and stop caring, which is what seemed to happen after the Sandy Hook shooting. But again, the students in Parkland proved a force to be reckoned with as they continued this journey, now joined by so many peers, and held their summer Road to Change tour, which took them to more than 20 states in two months to talk about ending gun violence and to register people to vote. This tour is reaching people across America like never before.
On August 12, I was honored to take part in the last stop of the tour in my hometown and show my support for this movement. I truly believe that history is being made. This new generation will enact change because we have no choice. We choose to keep future citizens safe. The movement of gun-violence prevention is not going to die out, because there are thousands of kids who have been forced to take action after suffering terrible losses. We cannot sit back as too many are slaughtered on a daily basis. We stand together, and we are not backing down until we feel safe in our own country.
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