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This year's school supply shopping included bulletproof backpack inserts. We have a problem.

It didn't make me less worried, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat.

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School supplies included bulletproof backpack inserts this year.

I stood in the back-to-school section at Target throwing my kindergartener's school supplies haphazardly in the red cart when suddenly I couldn't catch my breath. I found myself attempting to control a panic attack while deciding between RoseArt and Crayola crayons. (Crayola always wins, even though the price tag is bigger.)

My panic attack wasn't over the crayons, though that would've been easier to stomach. I was flooded with anxiety over having to send my innocent 5-year-old off to school in America. Being a dual-income middle-class family, there's no viable option for me not to send him into a classroom, so I stood in Target with the full weight of sending my youngest child off for an education and a lifetime of trauma.

In the few minutes it took me to understand why I was having trouble breathing, I decided this was the year I'd add bulletproof backpack inserts to the school supply list.

As I read reviews on the different brands of inserts, one company was having a back-to-school sale. "How absurd," I thought to myself. We live in a country where bulletproof inserts for backpacks are so sought after that ballistics companies can have back-to-school sales on them. Give that a moment to sink in.

My disgust over the absurdity of it all didn't stop me from recognizing a good sale, though. After texting my high school children to see if they also wanted an insert, I ordered three and had them expedited to my doorstep. It was an almost instantaneous relief, albeit short-lived.

A group of people protesting

Woman at a protest holds up a sign that reads, "ENOUGH."

Photo by Liam Edwards on Unsplash

My teens had questions, and they weren't completely comforted by the answers I could provide. They wanted to know the ballistic grade and if there was an insert that could withstand assault rifles. My middle son asked if I could buy an extra one so he could have one in the front panel of his backpack and one in the back to increase his protection against an AR-15. To be truthful, the highest grade insert was around $600 and if you multiply that by three it made it out of my price range.

Until I asked my older children about the insert, I had no idea they were calculating what items in their classroom would give them the best protection if a shooter came in. I've seen them walk through school tours like little soldiers trained for war, pointing out spaces that could be easily breached and classrooms that would make it difficult to hide.

My heart broke once more when my adult daughter informed me that she still has nightmares about active shooter drills four years after graduating. What are we doing in our country where traumatizing children from kindergarten up is the norm? How is it that buying a bulletproof insert for backpacks seems like the reasonable option? We don't live in a war-torn country, but preparing for school feels like it.

In one generation, schools went from being worried your bully might try to trip you in the hallway to being worried someone would come in and shoot everyone. I was in high school when Columbine happened and remember thinking that it was a sad isolated incident. It never crossed my mind that school shootings would become normal.

But until something's done about the frequency of school shootings, I'll buy whatever I can to ease my mind and give my kids the best chance of coming back home to me.

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Jimmy Fallon's moving message to Parkland graduates is a must-watch.

'You’re not the future. You’re the present.'

Jimmy Fallon addressed Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School's class of 2018, delivering a speech we should all hear.

The "Tonight Show" host made a surprise appearance at the Parkland, Florida, school's 2018 graduation ceremony, taking the stage to a round of enthusiastic applause. The usually apolitical talk-show host used a February monologue to express support and urge attendance at the March for Our Lives event organized by the school's students in response to a mass shooting that left 17 of their classmates and teachers dead. During his June 3 commencement address, he used humor to let the school and its students know how much he's inspired by their response to tragedy.

"Most commencement speakers get up and talk in future tense: 'You will succeed. You will make us proud. You will change the world,'" Fallon said. "But I’m not going to say that because you’re not the future. You’re the present."

"When something feels hard, remember that it gets better," Fallon said. "Choose to move forward. Don't let anything stop you."

It can be hard to find the silver lining in some of life's tragedies, and sometimes, you have to create your own change to find it. Fallon spoke specifically to how the students of Parkland have changed the world for all of us, finding light in the deepest darkness.

"Every bad experience can have something good that comes out of it. Sometimes things that seem like setbacks can take our lives in a totally new direction that can change our lives in ways we don't expect, and they make us better and stronger," he said. "You guys have already proved that to everyone. You took something horrific, and instead of letting it stop you, you started a movement — not just here in Florida, not just in America, but throughout the whole world. The whole world has heard your voice, and that was you making a choice."

Graduates of  Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School leave their graduation ceremony. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

"Don't think about what you want to do, think about why you want to do it, and the rest will figure itself out," Fallon said.

That's great advice, no matter who you are.

Watch Fallon's full address to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas class of 2018 below.

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25 of the best signs from March for Our Lives demonstrations around the globe.

Cities all over the planet were crowded on Saturday, March 24, 2018, as hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered to support the empowered teen survivors of the February school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

The demonstrations featured lively performances, tearful speeches throughout the day, and incredibly clever hand-made signs that drove a single important point home: #EnoughIsEnough.

Some people got a little crafty.

Others let powerful words do all the work.

Kids blew our minds by just telling it like it is.

It turns out you don't need to be human to make a good sign.

Maybe that's why people drew inspiration from wizards and queens (or were straight-up queens themselves).

And a few folks who really know about classroom safety and the lasting impact of violence dropped some major truth bombs.

The children certainly made their voices heard today. Now it's time for all of us to listen.

Read more on the March for Our Lives with stories on Parkland student Emma Gonzalez’s emotional silence, D.C. student Zion Kelly’s speech on losing his twin to gun violence, photos from around the country, and moving words from little kids.

And if you want to support the anti-gun-violence movement, we have a quiz for the best way you can help.

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Emma Gonzalez remembers her classmates in a gut-wrenching, powerful speech.

We knew Emma Gonzalez was amazing. But at the March for Our Lives rally, the teenager rewrote the script on powerful activism.

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

At the start of her powerful, gut-wrenching speech on March 24, 2018, in Washington, D.C., Gonzalez stood in front of the massive crowd, tears streaming down her face, absolutely silent for 6 minutes and 20 seconds. The reason?  

That's how long it took a 19-year-old gunman to go on a killing spree at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, killing 17 students and staff.  

"In a little over six minutes, 17 of our friends were taken from us, 15 were injured, and everyone, absolutely every one in the Douglas community was forever altered," Gonzalez explained.

She went on to discuss the pain of going through such a traumatic experience.

"For us, long, tearful, chaotic hours in the scorching afternoon sun were spent not knowing," Gonzalez said. "No one understood the extent of what had happened. No one could believe that there were bodies in that building waiting to be identified for over a day. No one knew that the people who had gone missing had stopped breathing long before any of us had even known that a code red had been called. No one could comprehend the devastating aftermath or how far this would reach or where this would go."

And then, just in case those listening hadn't gotten her point yet, Gonzalez stated, "For those who still can’t comprehend, because they refuse to, I’ll tell you where it went: right into the ground, six feet deep.”

Gonzalez continued her speech by talking about the everyday things her fallen classmates would never be able to do, such as calling their friends, playing basketball, or walking to school with a sibling.

She wrapped up with a devastating description of the shooter's actions and a call to action for the audience.    

"Fight for your lives before it's someone else's job," she asserted.

Let's fight alongside her and others to make change happen, too.

Read more on the March for Our Lives with stories on D.C. student Zion Kelly’s speech on losing his twin to gun violence, outstanding protest signs, photos from around the country, and moving words from little kids.

And if you want to support the anti-gun-violence movement, we have a quiz for the best way you can help.

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