Voices: Surviving the Parkland shooting, creating a movement and sticking to your 'guns'

I feel obliged to inform others about the dichotomy between security in Canadian schools and security in American schools. I want to shed some light into life outside of the U.S., hoping that politicians such as Marco Rubio read my letter and spend time reviewing gun laws in other countries as a means to determine the most effective solution to end the epidemic of school shootings.

I would like to express my gratitude to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., for attending the CNN town hall and listening to other survivors from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas massacre. I respect him for that brave action.

Due to yet another horrifying incident, I feel compelled to make sure our gun laws change, and the more I hear that an assault rifle ban is not likely to pass, the more worried I get about the future of my country.

As I drove into my school for the first day of classes on Feb. 28, tears rolled down my face. First, because I remembered the last time I was in school, and then because my school was surrounded by armed officers. I felt as if I were watching a movie depicting the arrival at a prison. When I stepped out of my car, it became my reality, and it slowly sunk in that I was entering my school.

My parents actually moved from Canada to Littleton, Colo., in 1998. They lived there during the Columbine High School shooting a year later, and when I was born, they decided that they did not want me to eventually attend a school where a massacre occurred, but now, in my senior year, my own school has been partly transformed into a crime scene and a military zone.

Source: usatoday