When 17 students and adults were shot and killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, a year ago, students across the nation staged school walkouts to protest gun violence, hosted memorials to commemorate the victims of the shooting, marched for their lives, and fought for further restrictions on firearms.
In Santa Maria, a group of high school students formed Santa Maria Valley United, a student coalition spanning high schools that planned rallies for increased regulations on guns and, with the help of other advocacy organizations, called on City Council to implement buffer zones between schools and stores selling firearms.
But despite the many calls for action, marches, and media attention, little has changed in the past year.
“There hasn’t been a whole lot that’s happened,” said Abraham Melendrez, an organizer with CAUSE (Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy).
CAUSE, an organization that advocates for the needs of Santa Maria’s underserved populations, helped high school students push for buffer zones between schools and stores selling firearms in 2018.
But, Melendrez said, after a loud and energetic protest in March 2018 outside Get R Gun, which sits directly across the street from Santa Maria High School, and a few student-led public comments at a City Council meeting in April of that year, it became clear that city officials weren’t interested in the buffer zone idea.
Although nothing came of that effort and calls for action have quieted significantly since last year at this time, Melendrez said many local students are still very passionate about gun violence and violence in schools in general. Some, he said, are actively working to get involved in the city’s recently launched programs that would allow youth representatives to work with the Mayor’s Task Force on Youth Safety.
In the weeks following Parkland, more than 50 violent threats were made against schools across the nation almost every day, according to the Educator’s School Safety Network, an advocacy organization that has tracked news reports of threats and violence since 2016. Normally, the group tracks an average of 10 threats a day.
Threats were made against and by students at Santa Maria, St. Joseph, and Ernest Righetti high schools, and others on the Central Coast.
Investigations into threats, usually made via social media, have put the Santa Maria Joint Union High School District and Guadalupe Union School District under lockdowns at least once each since the Parkland shooting, according to Public Information Officer Kenny Klein.
Schools in the Santa Maria-Bonita School District have locked down over threats at least twice since last February, according to Public Information Officer Maggie White. Santa Maria-Bonita experiences nearly one or two lockdowns every month between its 20 sites, she said, usually because of potentially dangerous activity off campus.
On Feb. 14, Rep. Salud Carbajal (D-Santa Barbara) reintroduced the Extreme Risk Protection Order Act, a bill that would incentivize states to implement programs allowing law enforcement and family members to petition a judge to have guns temporarily taken from anyone thought to be dangerous or in a crisis.
The bill would create a grant program through the U.S. Department of Justice that would provide funding to states that decide to implement the use of gun violence restraining orders. California and 12 other states already use gun violence restraining orders.
The passage of California’s gun violence restraining order law was prompted by the 2014 shooting in Isla Vista, when Carbajal was serving as a county supervisor.
“It happened in my county, in my community, in the community where I served as a county supervisor, the university I attended,” Carbajal said, adding that his older sister also used a firearm to kill herself when he was a child. “So this is an issue that’s very close to home to me on many fronts.”
Staff Writer Kasey Bubnash writes School Scene each week. Information can be sent to the Sun via mail, fax, or email at mail@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 21-28, 2019.