Like a lot of other parents reeling from news of the latest mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 14 who spotted the picture of a simple, plastic doorstop circulating on the internet, I thought I’d snag a few at the hardware store to stick in my kids’ backpacks. You know, in case they’re faced with an active shooter situation at their schools and want to inhibit the shooter’s entry into their classrooms (locks can be rendered useless by bullets). Absurd, but it’s something, right? Something we parents can do to feel like we’re somehow making our children safer? But my high-schooler pointed out this wouldn’t work on the doors at her school, which open out (per fire code), only on doors that open in. Huh. Shucks.

She immediately pulled up a video about a product she’d stumbled upon, though, likely to be way more effective, which could be placed in each classroom: the Barracuda Intruder Defense System, reputed to quickly barricade commercial doors. Ah! Now we’re talking. But what about the Parkland shooter reportedly pulling the fire alarm to gain access to more soft targets (he also used smoke bombs to suggest the threat of fire was real) about which she’d also heard?

“So what do you think you should do if you hear a fire alarm? How will you respond, now?” I asked. Wow, imagine trying to process this once fear has seized your brain. “If you hear gunfire, assume it’s not a structure fire and hunker down?” I asked. That’s my take at the moment, yeah. But how crazy is this? That I must have these conversations with my kids? This is nuts! It’s the “Hunger Games,” and our children are the pawns! And it just doesn’t have to be this way. I’m sick of the mass slaughter of our children, so I’m voting for politicians with the guts to refuse cash from the National Rifle Association, who also will commit to supporting a ban on automatic weapons (and the use and sale of bump stocks, which effectively circumvent restrictions on automatic weapons), who will also support the closing loopholes on background checks for those who want to purchase guns. It’s time for sensible gun laws. We have the means, but do we have the will? Remember Sandy Hook? If we didn’t wake up and change our ways when our littlest students were gunned down, when will we? And WHO are we?

You don’t just stand by and watch someone get hit by a bus without intervening or allow a sick person to die when life-saving medicine is available (well, in this country we do, but that’s another column), you stage an intervention.

There’s no question that we need greater access to mental health services, but there are mentally ill people all over the globe. Mass shootings are a uniquely American problem for one reason – access to assault weapons.

In my humble opinion, the Parkland shooter is but a mere symptom, the identified patient, if you will, in a sick family system – a system that can be fixed. And the kids, the very ones who survived the latest school shooting, know this – including Emma Gonzalez, a senior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, who bravely addressed a gun control rally Feb. 17 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., mere days after the massacre.

“We know that they are claiming mental health issues, and I am not a psychologist, but we need to pay attention to the fact that this was not just a mental health issue. He would not have harmed that many students with a knife,” she said (or with a handgun, for that matter).

Most high schoolers can’t vote (yet!), but they can act. There are several groups calling for student walkouts to demand gun reform: on March 14, #NationalSchoolWalkout is calling for students to walk out of school for 17 minutes (one for every victim of the latest school shooting) at 10 a.m. across every time zone to protest Congress’ inaction.

Also, "On March 24, the kids and families of March For Our Lives will take to the streets of Washington, D.C., to demand that their lives and safety become a priority and that we end this epidemic of mass school shootings. The collective voices of the March For Our Lives movement will be heard. Join us in D.C. or march in your own community," according to marchforourlives.com. Teachers, not afforded the luxury of growing bored by news of school shootings and moving on, plan to protest, too, April 20, the 19th anniversary of the Columbine shooting. Supporters of the National High School WALK-OUT propose that all concerned wear orange and/or walk out of school at 10 a.m. and protest.

Will my daughter walk out of her school to stand with them? Anytime she does I’ll be right there with her, in my new orange T-shirt, cheering her on. And then I’ll vote. It’s the least I can do.

Jennifer DuBose lives in Batavia with her family. Her column runs regularly in the Kane Weekend section of the Kane County Chronicle. Contact her at editorial@kcchronicle.com.