Oxford, MI – Today marks one year since the deadly shooting at Oxford High School, where four students were shot and killed and seven individuals, including a teacher, were shot and wounded. The shooter was a 15-year-old, armed with a semi-automatic handgun that he brought from home. In the wake of the shooting, volunteers with the Michigan chapters of Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, both part of the Everytown grassroots movement, have called for common sense gun safety reform.
“Our Oxford community will never recover from the scars and pain of this shooting,” said Jenny Prather, a volunteer with the Michigan chapter of Moms Demand Action. “Our children should be able to go to school without fear of being shot and killed. One year later, we honor the lives impacted by recommitting ourselves to fighting gun violence in all its forms.”
“Oxford has been added to a list of tragedies at schools; Uvalde, Sandy Hook, Parkland, Oxford and too many others,” said Rebekah Schuler, a volunteer with Students Demand Action and a survivor of the Oxford High School Shooting. “Is this the reality now, students like myself experiencing shootings in our schools where we should feel safe? Is this the future we want for the generations to come? Or even the future for other students in this country? We’ve borne the burden of gun violence for far too long and I say it’s time we break the cycle for our own generation and generations to come. For all the victims who can’t say something, I will.”
Since 2013, Everytown has identified 1000 incidents of gunfire on school grounds. Many of these shootings were committed by minors or people associated with schools.
Next week, the Michigan legislature will meet for the December lame duck session. In this session they will have the opportunity to take up common sense gun laws that could help prevent mass shootings like the one at Oxford High School. Legislation could include secure firearm storage which could have prevented the Oxford shooter from accessing his gun, legislation to address the role firearms play in intimate partner violence, and extreme risk protections orders, which give loved ones and law enforcement the ability to petition courts to temporarily remove access to firearms from individuals who are at risk of harming themselves and others.
Additionally, in 2023, for the first time in decades, Michigan will have a gun sense trifecta with Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s re-election and new Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. Moms Demand Action volunteers were also elected to judicial and school board seats, helping to ensure that gun violence prevention will be a priority across every level of government in Michigan.
Since 2009, the U.S. has had at least 289 mass shootings. This includes at least eight mass shootings in Michigan, resulting in 37 people shot and killed and an additional 11 people shot and wounded. The reach of each mass shooting — which Everytown defines as an incident in which four or more people are shot and killed, excluding the shooter — stretches far beyond those killed and wounded, harming the well-being of survivors, their families, and entire communities.
In an average year, 1,270 people are killed by guns in Michigan and 2,437 more are wounded. Guns are also the leading cause of death among children and teens in Michigan.
More information on gun violence in Michigan is available here.
