When Anthony McRae grabbed two guns and headed to the East Lansing campus of Michigan State University (MSU) last Monday, he had made the decision to kill students. Except for feeling despised by society, according to the note he left, the reason why this man, with no connection to that center, chose that place as his setting is unknown. But his misdeed, in which he left three dead and three wounded before committing suicide, caused a familiar sensation among students and on America's campuses.
Some, however, found it more familiar than others. This shooting occurred just on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the Valentine's Day massacre at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland (Florida), where a gunman killed 17 students and teachers and injured 17 others. This was confirmed what the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, defined as “an exclusively American problem”.
In other countries in the same orbit, there may be an exceptional case of someone who has survived two cases of shootings. The MSU tragedy confirms that in the US it is not something exceptional. Among those who had to confine themselves for three hours to avoid meeting the fugitive McRae, among those who received the message from the authorities to "run, hide and fight" (the third part causes astonishment in a nation where prayers are asked to combat weapons), because among these were survivors of the massacre of the Oxford Institute (near Detroit), on November 30, 2021 with four schoolboys dead, from Parkland itself and from the Sandy Hook elementary school, a tragedy recorded in the 2012 settled with 20 deceased children and six teachers.
Jaqueline (Jackie) Matthews was just a girl that December 14 when she attended Sandy Hook, in Newtown (Connecticut) and had to seek refuge in a corner of her classroom. More than ten years later, the fear returned as she hid from another gunman on the East Lansing campus.
“The fact that this is the second mass shooting that I have had to experience is incomprehensible,” he reflects in a video that he posted on his TikTok account and that has gone viral. Looking out the window at the chaos that ensued last Monday, she felt like she was back in time, now 21, majoring in International Law and a member of the MSU rowing team.
In the recording, the university student recalls the day that marked her adolescence (she was in sixth grade and attended the school next to the elementary school) and stresses that "we cannot allow this to happen, we can no longer be complacent."
As a result of post-traumatic stress and due to the prolonged period of time she was crouched down, she suffered a back injury. That ailment returns "any time she faced a stressful situation or something aggressive like this happens right now," she emphasizes.
Since Sandy Hook, which then appeared to be the definitive issue to change gun control regulations, there have been more than 3,500 mass shootings (at least four people killed or injured) in the United States, always based on the calculations of the non-profit organization Gun Violence Archive. Only so far in 2023, the number rises to 68, and adds and continues.
Jackie is not the only one, not even close, since there are others who are "repeaters" of tragedy. Another of the voices being heard this week is that of Emma Riddle, an 18-year-old freshman. "This is totally surreal, we come from something similar 14 months ago, what is happening?", She asks herself. She was a student at the Oxford Institute, where she also had to hide to survive.
“I am very scared,” she wrote to her father last Monday after the shots were fired and the confinement order was given, while they were chasing the gunman. "I know," her father responded immediately with a text. “Why haven't they arrested him yet? He is very close, ”she insisted, in clear evidence of anxiety.
Riddle and his roommate were in the dark for hours. In that wait, she wrote a tweet: “14 months ago I had to be evacuated from Oxford High School when a 15-year-old boy opened fire and killed four of my classmates and wounded seven more. Tonight I'm sitting under my desk at MSU, once again texting everyone I love you."
Governor Whitmer summed up the sentiment of many. “We cannot continue living like this, our children are afraid to go to school, people are not safe in the temples or in the shops. As parents we tell them that everything will be fine, but words are not enough, we must act”.
McRae purchased the pistols legally, although he did not register them. He was convicted in 2019 for carrying weapons in plain sight without permission. The sentence prevented him from now having pistols. But he had them.
