No Justice, No Peace

In 2024 alone, there were 330 school-shootings; there have already been 13 in the first month of 2025, thankfully, only one of which contained a fatality. This incident, which took place at Antioch High School in Nashville, Tennessee, has sparked another round of rallies, walkouts, and rage for those living in Nashville, as they deal with grief over the shooting as well as grief over a society that allows this to happen.

On January 22, 2025 around 11 a.m. 17-year-old student Solomon Henderson fired at his classmates in the cafeteria during lunch, killing one student and wounding another before turning the gun on himself. Henderson reportedly wrote a 51 page document detailing his belief in white-supremicy, anti-semitism, and Incel ideology. He also live-streamed the shooting before the platform quickly took the video down. The victim of Henderson’s attack, Josselin Corea Escalante was 16-years-old and loved soccer, her family, and school. Her cousin Linci Escalante wrote on her GoFundME page: “Josselin, a bright and compassionate young woman, dreamed of becoming a doctor. Just last year, she celebrated her Quinceañera, a milestone filled with joy and hope for the future.”

While there was very little chance that a highly conservative governor like Bill Lee was going to be especially respected or well-liked in the greater Nashville area, the little popularity he was afforded has almost totally evaporated. After the 2023 Covenant shooting Gov. Lee responded with a five minute speech that boiled down to thoughts, prayers, and no new legislation, or even discussion of that legislation. Despite his statement that, “There will come a time to discuss and debate policy,” that time has yet to come. Furthering his dismissal of these issues, after the Antioch shooting he offered even less, simply saying that he, “join[s] Tenneseeans in praying for the victims, their families & the school community.” This statement was then followed by an emergency session for the state government which made no acknowledgement of the shooting or broader gun control issues surrounding it. Instead, they discussed the topic of school vouchers a program that seeks to subsidize private school tuition, taking away precious funding from Tennessee public schools which are clearly in desperate need of funding, including funding for greater security measures.

This dissatisfying response from the government was the tipping point for many leading up to the rally. It was organized by two high-school seniors at Hume-Fogg highschool: Hannah Mosher and Eliot Watson. The rally included multiple speakers such as Representative Gloria Johnson, Hume-Fogg student, Emmy Wolf-Dubin; and several students from Antioch High-School, among others. Slightly past the middle of the rally, while students were speaking, several Republican legislators left the capitol, inexplicably choosing to exit into the crowd of students, where they were met with boos and cries of “Coward,”: a reference to a comment Rep. Johnson had made during her earlier speech. The event lasted around an hour and a half, at which point those who had tickets flooded inside the capitol building. Unfortunately, despite the well organized efforts of the students who planned the protest and the rageful yells of the hundred or so students there, Gov. Lee continued in his refusal to discuss gun control legislation at the special session. While rallies and protests in general are undoubtedly a good way to process rage in a non-violent manner, they alone are very seldom as effective in preventing further tragedies as those participating would like. 

This being said, there are ways to contribute to the efforts for gun control legislation. The National Rifle Association (NRA) helpfully created a list of its enemies, “National Anti-Gun Organizations,” which, though the NRA took the original webpage down, a copy of can be found here. This is likely not an all-encompassing list, but this is a good place to start for those looking. School shootings are a horrifying fact of life, but they don’t have to be. 

Works Cited

Administrator. (n.d.). The NRA’s “Anti-Gun Organizations.” VACPS. Retrieved February 4, 

2025, from https://vacps.org/nra-anti-gun-organizations

AllSides News Team. (2025). Fact Check: How Many School Shootings Have Happened in 2025? Allsides.com. https://www.allsides.com/story/facts-and-fact-checking-fact-check-how-many-school-shootings-have-happened-2025

Daryani, C. (2025, January 28). In Wake of Antioch High Shooting, Students Rally for Change at Tennessee Capitol. Nashville Banner. https://nashvillebanner.com/2025/01/28/students-protest-antioch-high/

Motycka, E. (2025, January 28). Shooting Pushes Metro Schools to Adopt New Security Measures. Nashville Scene. https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/citylimits/antioch-school-shooting-security/article_5147c65c-dd02-11ef-9545-5b0ffc45abe9.html

Patton, A., Owens, M., & Baird, B. (2025, January 22). What we know so far about the Antioch school shooter. WKRN News 2. https://www.wkrn.com/news/local-news/nashville/what-we-know-so-far-about-the-antioch-school-shooter/

Riedman, D. (2025). How Many School Shootings? All Incidents From 1966-Present. K-12 School Shooting Database. https://k12ssdb.org/all-shootings

S.V. Dáte. (2013, February 6). NRA’s “Anti-Gun” List Includes Some Not-So-Obvious Names. NPR. https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/02/06/171304502/nras-anti-gun-list-includes-obvious-and-some-not-so-expected-names

School Incidents | Gun Violence Archive. (2025). Gunviolencearchive.org. https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/school-shootings?page=2

West, E. R. (2023, March 28). What Gov. Bill Lee has said about The Covenant School shooting. News Channel 5 Nashville (WTVF). https://www.newschannel5.com/news/what-gov-bill-lee-has-said-about-the-covenant-school-shooting

WKRN News 2. (2025). WKRN News 2. https://doi.org/10391303.m3u8