Content Warning: This story contains mentions of gun violence and death.

I was born in 2007, meaning I am part of the Sandy Hook generation — a violent, senseless, elementary school legacy. The children directly affected by the Sandy Hook shooting are now young adults. Some of them are 18 — the same age as me.

Twenty of them never grew up. In 2012, they were immortalized forever as some of the youngest victims of gun violence in America. The reality of gun violence in schools framed my entire childhood, which I can trace all the way up to the shooting at Brown University last month.

I’m not entirely sure when the details of gun violence and school shootings came into focus for me. I know it was before the seventh grade, when I wrote an essay for religion class on why tightening gun regulations was a cause worth fighting for. I know it was before the fifth grade, when I participated in a March For Our Lives protest in downtown Sacramento, proudly touting a styrofoam posterboard with my bold, black bubble letters spelling out “FEAR HAS NO PLACE IN SCHOOLS.”

I know I knew about gun violence before the third grade, because I spent hours hiding in the gym when a person was shot at a nearby mall, and it was reported that the assailant was hiding in the neighborhood adjacent to my school. This would not be the last time my classmates and I would have to sit in the darkness, a confused fear inching itself into the backs of our heads, stomachs grumbling and mouths dry.

In 2019, during my older sister Marina’s sophomore year in high school, she texted our family that the school next to hers had received a serious shooting threat. She recounts a wave of kids running through the California outdoor campus, ducking into a classroom. Friends were crying and praying with no cell service. They were also laughing — trying to joke their way through it. The 15-year-old boy who sent the threat out was arrested, and then nothing.

On Saturday, December 13th, 2025, I had already flown home from Evanston for Winter Break. Marina had returned from her campus, Brown, a couple of weeks early with one of her friends.

To get in the Christmas spirit, I baked cookies with my mom and grandma that morning. In the afternoon, Marina and her friend headed to Lake Tahoe for a concert. While they were driving, my dad got an urgent text from Brown’s emergency text alert system: Active shooter at Brown University. 

We all began to spiral.

Marina and her friend had already left campus, but so many of their friends were still there. Shots were heard on Hope Street and Waterman Street — the street my sister had called home that semester. She texted her friends on campus, asking for proof of life. My mom refreshed the Brown parents and guardians Facebook group incessantly. Unverified reports were flooding in — first it was three that were shot, then five and ultimately, eleven.

One parent said their son saw someone get shot in the head. He was studying for an econ final. We had no way to know what was real, where the shooter was or how many more students would be attacked.

Marina called. Her acquaintance Mia, a Brown senior, was shot while she was in high school. Five years later, she was sheltering in place in college.

And here I was, still methodically plaiting Greek Christmas cookies with tears in my eyes, scrapping one after another. What could I do? What could any of us do? Some of us were in the comfort of our homes or at the grocery store, like my family was. At the same time, people at Brown were sheltering on the top floor of the library or lying on their sides in pools of their own blood. It’s visceral. But this is the reality that everyone, no matter their age, has to face in America.

Do something, do something, do something. A heartbeat pounding in my chest. We are all trying. I’d like to think that.

I wrote this piece, and my sister is spreading counseling resources via one of her clubs. My dad, like many others, is donating to a GoFundMe for the families of Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov and Ella Cook, the two victims. I wish I could say we were doing more. Sometimes it feels hopeless, that students will keep getting killed, and we’re just standing in place. But that does not mean we should accept this. We need to keep making noise, pushing our legislators, going to protests, getting involved and most importantly, keep holding our loved ones. 

Let them cry on your shoulders. Let them scream if they need to. Feel their breath, in and out and in, each expansion of their lungs a reminder of what we need to fight for.

Iliana Demas is a Weinberg freshman. She can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.