What It's Like

…to Lose Your Best Friend to Guns in First Grade

On September 28, 2016, first-grader Jacob Hall was shot by a fourteen-year-old boy who opened fire at Townville Elementary School in North Carolina. Six months later, his best friend Ava Olsen was diagnosed with Severe PTSD/ depression, with school attendance an exacerbating factor. Her behaviors included self inflicted wounds such as yanking out her eyelashes and infecting her elbow from clawing it with her nails. Perhaps most chilling of all, she began repeating the words screamed by the shooter before he unleashed devastation on those around him: “I hate my life.”

The number of children’s lives harmed or lost by gun violence goes far beyond the growing roster of those who die by bullet. In the aftermath of violence, or under the strain of everyday violence in or around their homes, children growing up in proximity to gun violence will suffer mentally, physically and economically as that violence takes a toll on their ability to learn, adapt and navigate the world. Educators and healthcare providers will need increased levels of funding, training and support to combat these effects.

In healthcare, the practice of “trauma informed care” has been growing in response to the prevalence of violence impacting people’s everyday lives. But as badly as it’s needed, trauma informed care is focused on the victims, not the cause of, gun violence among children and teens. With the United States accounting for nine out of ten firearm deaths among youth in high-income countries, we will be stuck in the cycle of violence unless we take urgent, pragmatic measures to better control access to guns.