GRAPHIC: HANNAH PAJTIS ’26/THE HAWK
The start of college should be an exciting time for new students. This should have been no different for the incoming first-year students at Villanova University moving their belongings into their dorms Aug. 21. What started out as an exciting day for the hundreds of parents and students quickly created national headlines about the university going into lockdown over what turned out to be a shooting hoax. While no one was hurt, the terror was real as everyone braced for the familiar nightmare of automatic gunfire.
Less than a week later, this nightmare became yet another reality when a shooter opened fire inside a Catholic school’s church in Minnesota, killing two children and injuring 21 others. The symbolism is chilling: Wake up, America. Even God’s house isn’t safe from America’s obsession with guns.
Vice President JD Vance’s response to this tragedy was to call upon the public to “Join all of us in praying for the victims!” Are the prayers enough, Mr. Vice President? Tell me when they become enough to bring back someone’s child or stop the years of trauma ahead for those who survived.
The same empty phrase of “thoughts and prayers” isn’t bulletproof. It doesn’t protect children in schools, kneeling in pews or on a college campus. It’s a political cover, nothing more — a way for leaders to look compassionate while doing absolutely nothing. We still haven’t learned from our mistakes from Sandy Hook or Uvalde or the hundreds of other school shootings that have occurred.
This should not be normal. This doesn’t happen at such a high frequency anywhere else in the world. However, it will continue to be normal if America continues to elect officials into office who would rather bow to the gun lobby than protect lives while communities across the country are left shaken.
It is not enough to send sympathy tweets. Change requires policy and the courage to confront a culture that normalizes gun violence.
No amount of prayer can shield us from the next bullet. Keep forcing people to consider security plans instead of scripture and evacuation drills instead of hymns.