By: Tyler Hartz

February 22, 2023:

A typical Monday night in East Lansing, Michigan was quickly changed when a gunman opened fire around 8:30 p.m. Michigan State. Police Chief, Chris Guzman, said that the shooter was identified as 43-year-old Anthony McRae. As of now, the motive for this shooting is unknown.

The first location where McRae began to fire was Berkley Hall, on the Michigan State campus. In the shooting, McRae let off shots killing a total of 3 people and injuring 5 others. McRae fired shots at two different locations: the Berkley Hall building and the Michigan State student union building. Once shots began, the Michigan State administration sent emails out to faculty & staff, and students, warning everyone to stay inside their dorm buildings or even potentially evacuate the area.

The manhunt lasted almost 3 hours long, and McRae was eventually found at an off-campus location. Anthony McRae was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. When the police found McRae deceased, they were able to put out a statement to everyone on campus that it was safe to leave the buildings and return home. Students were all over the place during the shooting. Michigan State has a student population of close to 50 thousand, between undergraduate and graduate schooling. One student said in an interview that she and her boyfriend were in the MSU student union building “I thought I was going to die, it sounded like he was right there.” Many students scared for their lives were able to hunker down in their dorm rooms and stay safe throughout the shooting.

However, one Michigan State student has made a viral video, explaining that this was not the first school shooting she has endured in her lifetime. Jackie Matthews, a senior at Michigan State made a TikTok video explaining how she was a member of Sandy Hook Elementary in 2012 when a gunman open fired inside the school. In an interview, Matthews said she was in another building directly across the street from the first building where the first three students were shot and killed. Matthews said in the same video “the fact that this is the second mass shooting that I have now lived through is incomprehensible.”

Since the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012, the United States has endured over 3,500 mass shootings. In an 11-year period, that is roughly 318 mass shootings per year. Since the ball

dropped in New York City, as of February 17^th, 46 days into 2023, there have already been 70 shootings on record in America.

Whenever a school shooting happens, we as American citizens always bring up a lot of different conversations about guns, gun control, and mental health checks. Nobody will ever have the perfect answer as to what needs to be done in America without disagreement. However, one thing is for certain, America leads the world in mass shootings by a large number. In the year 2022, America reported 647 mass shootings. The United States of America accounts for 4.4 percent of the global 7.8 billion population, but the U.S.A accounts for 42 percent of guns in the entire world.