Photo via @jodieisemo/TikTok
September 2, 2021, 2:04 pm
A TikTok video posted by a young person who apparently only recently moved to the U.S. appears to show a fellow student using their laptop in class to look at photos of and potentially shop for guns, ammunition, and paraphernalia during what looks like a high school class. The video, posted by TikTok user @jodieisemo, has gained over 350,000 views on a relatively unknown account in under two days as viewers express their horror over the sight in the comments.
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“It’s only the second week of school in America for me,” says the computerized voice to the overlay text along with two face emojis and a series of skulls.
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The footage is particularly alarming in a nation where school shootings have become ridiculously common to the point that “active shooter drills” are performed in most public schools across the country. Many of these schools, mostly in low-income areas, have even set up metal detectors at all of the entrances to try and prevent kids from entering with firearms.
The emergence of this video is made even worse by news coming out of the preliminary hearings to the upcoming trial for the Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz, who killed 17 students and staff members and injured 17 more with an AR-15 in apparent retaliation for bullying he experienced. Cruz’s trial is expected to finally begin this month after multiple long delays, in part due to the coronavirus pandemic, and his lawyers are making the argument that terms like “killer” and “mass shooter” should not be allowed in the courtroom.
Commenters on TikTok appear to be divided between telling the user to alert a school staff member to this gun-viewing student’s behavior and arguing that he might just be a regular gun fan with no intention of killing anyone. Unfortunately, the reality in the U.S., where mass shootings occur on a nearly daily basis. Though school shootings, in particular, are rarer, they tend to end with high body counts and have proven to be incredibly traumatizing to the entire student body considering the fact that they are expected to return to the building where it happened and continue their education.
“You recorded him looking at historical muskets without permission,” claimed one commenter. “He’s not gonna shoot up the school with some 1700s musket.”
It’s unclear exactly what the student’s search term was that resulted in images of various guns and accessories. Some do appear to be more old-style firearms, but bullets and what look like modern gun parts or mods can also be seen on the screen. A simple search for the term “musket” does not bring up anything like what appeared in his search results.
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And again, people can hardly be blamed for becoming nervous at such enthusiasm for guns being displayed within school walls. This certainly seems like one of those “better safe than sorry” situations.
“If this is serious legitimately show this video to your principal I’m just saying,” said another TikTok user.
*First Published: September 2, 2021, 2:04 pm
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