Dear Editor-in-Chief,

Is Diablo Valley College and its students properly prepared for the threat of gun violence?

In our current times, students and faculty alike are still struggling with the trauma that came with the COVID-19 virus and the nearly two-year ongoing battle to keep it contained. Additionally, the whole world watched together as Russia invaded Ukraine, uncertainty and horror wracking our society once again. Still, with these uncertain times, I think it’s important now more than ever that we spread awareness about the threat of gun violence… but why is that?

In the Princeton University academic journal The Future of Children, a journal article by Phillip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig, titled “The costs of gun violence against children,” a “willingness-to- pay” framework was used to find out the annual costs of gun violence, and the results found that an estimated $100 billion per year is spent as a result of gun violence on American society. The national study also found that at least $15 billion of that is directly attributable to gun violence against youth. Now, while these costs certainly show the economic impact of gun violence, what’s most important to take away is that gun violence impacts us all and should be taken seriously.

This circles back to the question of, “why?” Why, with our current threats being as present as they are, should we bring this to the forefront of our list? With COVID-19 and most classes having been shifted to online, I, for one, as a DVC student, haven’t visited either campus often enough to know what to do in the case of an emergency on the grounds.

As normalcy returns, more and more people are going to be present on our two campuses. Therefore, I am asking you to aid in spreading awareness about the threat of gun violence and advocate for the education of emergency procedures and routes for every DVC student that has visit campus to attend class. While this may be uncomfortable to some students who get uneasy hearing about these types of threats, we will at least know one thing for certain in these uncertain times: that the safety of the students and faculty at DVC is secured in this worst-case scenario.

Emily Parr

San Ramon, CA