On a seemingly average Friday, students of Whitmer High School dressed in their brightest pink clothes to support their school’s football team against Central Catholic High School. By minute six of the fourth quarter, twelve gunshots would be released from an unidentified target. There were three surviving victims, made up of a senior at Whitmer and two spectating adults. 

   Subsequently in Voorhees, NJ, students of Eastern Regional High School dressed in pink in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The fourth quarter concluded, students poured off of the bleachers, and their weekends began. 

   Two different endings to a school’s “Friday Night Lights”.

     I was introduced to the Whitmer High School shooting, by a TikTok on my for you page posted in effort to send prayers to the victims. The same day, my Genocide teacher opened discussion, asking the class if there were any news events the we would like to discuss.

   Upon educating the class on my recent knowledge of the Whitmer High School Shooting, I was not met with a sigh of dismay, but instead the reactions of my classmates included audible gasps and surprised faces.

  The scary realization that this exact situation could have been at Eastern hit me, and each one of them.

   This incident has obviously not been the first school related shooting, and unfortunately is improbable to be the last given the resistance to regulate guns in America. However, when scrolling through the Voyager’s database I found myself taken aback when coming across an almost identical article to the one I am currently writing, titled “High School Football Game Shooting”.  

   This article was written by Faith Mendelson in 2019. The particular story regarded a football game in Camden, NJ. One spectating ten year old boy, Micah Tennant, was killed.

   In a video statement shortly released after the 2022 high school football shooting, Head of Central Catholic High School, Kevin Parkins, simply stated, “This is an opportunity too, as parents, guardians, for you to also engage your child in a conversation.” 

   Now two weeks from the October 14th shooting, no perpetrator has been identified and no legal action has been pursued regarding the use of firearms in this incident. 

   When circumstances such as these repetitive football game shootings happen, mere conversation does not account for the tragedy endured by gunshot victims. If not now, when will come the time for action?