EAST LANSING, Mich. – Michigan State University’s Meeting Rock became the canvas for a campus debate Wednesday. It began as “How many more,” a message of anguish spray painted in the days after the shootings.
Tuesday (Feb. 14) night, It was painted over with a demand, “Allow us to defend ourselves and carry on campus.”
Then Wednesday morning, two students who were strangers to one another had the same idea. They went to honor the lives lost.
The pair painted over the second message, creating a blank slate and writing, “To those we lost, to those healing. Brian. Arielle. Alexandria.”
Read: ‘Listen to us’: Michigan State University students demand action on gun violence in East Lansing
That message was then painted over again at the request of MSU officials, who asked a local artist to paint it on before the message to the victims and survivors.
The shooting has reignited the debate over whether more guns on school grounds means safer students. Both sides of the debate weighed in Wednesday.
“They don’t have to get rid of guns, but we need better gun laws,” said Maya Manuel. “We need stricter gun laws. More background checks. That’s really what we’re hoping for.”
“First off, we need to worry about the security of the campus before we really worry about gun laws and what needs to be done at that level,” said Haleigh Austin of MSU College Republicans. “If that means that students or faculty have guns on campus, that could be worried about later on.”
But do more guns make for safer schools?
Recent data from studies at Columbia University, The Journal of American Medicine, Rutgers, and Johns Hopkins have all found an increase in guns on school grounds, including in the hands of trained officers, actually increases the likelihood of deaths during a mass shooting.
But the debate will continue on campuses in Michigan and across the country as another community grieves and prays for anything to change.
Watch: Vigil at Michigan State University ‘Rock’ in honor of students killed during mass shooting
Watch: University of Michigan vigil in honor of 3 Michigan State students who were killed in mass shooting
