Midlands Community Reacts To Florida Shooting

Columbia, SC (WOLO)– You can hear it in conversation and see it all over social media; people are grieving with those affected by yesterday’s shooting in Florida. People here in the Midlands are taking the news of the shooting as another reminder of the tragedy that happened in Charleston back in 2015.

“Our first reaction was ‘again? Something like this?” Lucas Tramasso said, a Florida resident visiting South Carolina with his family. 

“I think it’s kind of ridiculous how people with those type of intentions would go and be able to do that still,” Nestor Worobetz said, a local resident. 

“That’s my biggest reaction. Just a lot of people died. Senselessly,” Mike McElwain said, another resident of the state. 

Now, the question they are trying to answer is not ‘why’, but ‘what can we do?’

“I definitely hope to see our government take action against this. At least recognize the fact that what they have been doing hasn’t been enough. It’s still not enough,” Worobetz said.  The Florida shooting highlighted the need for security in schools and why it was allowed to happen again.

“It’s something that I think could have been prevented. And should have been. And you go back to the school, he had pretty easy access going into the school as well. So, it was… if you’re able to go into the building and go up to the third floor without any problems, it shouldn’t happen in a high school today,” Mike McElwain said. McElwain said times are different because he never thought about shootings when his kids were in school.

“Never really worried about it. Today, it seems like you have to worry about it all the time,” McElwain said.  

Lucas Tramasso said his family is growing more concerned. They are from Brazil, but now living in Florida, and his younger sister is still in high school.  

“For my sister, yes we are very concerned. And since we’re not from here, my mom is actually very concerned because my sister has 1 ½ years of high school here in the United States. And so it’s something very different for us,” Tramasso said.