On Monday, September 25th, students received an e-mail detailing an alleged gun threat made to our student body on the Friday of the Concordia game. The message stated that local police had been contacted immediately regarding the issue and that the leads had no validity. 

Regarding the threat itself, Principal Dr. Smith worked to extinguish anxiety among students, parents, and staff.  

“This is a nationwide thing right now [on social media] with threats towards school, but they are not materializing,” Dr. Smith said.  

Smith clarified, “In this case there was never a threat. There was a middle school student who claimed to have heard a high schooler talking about something they heard online. When the student heard something and immediately called the police, they investigated and couldn’t find anything.  A matter of fact they couldn’t even identify if a high school student was even involved.” 

High school students admit this email frightened them a bit but also didn’t feel it impacted them.  

“I am scared of a school shooting, but I just don’t feel like it would actually happen here,” Senior Aleah Ortiz said. 

The feeling of invincibility seems common.  Everytown.org, is an organization that specializes in gun safety and its effects on communities around the country. 

“When it comes to gun violence, it’s easy for most of us to ignore it. It’s on the TV, we turn it off. It’s in the paper, we turn the page. It’s just a distant story to most of us, to which we shake our heads before allowing it to leave our minds just as fast as it entered,” the organization said.  

It rings true here in our halls. 

“You guys think you’re invincible. You guys don’t wear your seatbelts all the time. You guys drive fast. You guys do a lot of things. I’m sure there are some that do, but I don’t think [you do] as a whole,” Coach Brad Nicks said. 

“It only takes one person to be a little bit crazy or a little bit off that something catastrophic could happen to our student body, and that would be horrific,” Nicks said.