While round tabling this week’s Globe’s Point, our editorial staff had reservations about visiting the topic of mass shootings, particularly school shootings.

We decided we wanted to join this conversation, as other local college newspapers had so graciously done. Pitt News produced a fantastic editorial on the student walkouts following the recent Parkland tragedy. The Duquesne Duke also published an editorial piece last week about the upcoming March for Our Lives rallies set to take place March 24 around the country – a march with a mission aimed at preventing gun violence.

Though the recent shooting that stripped 17 students from their lives, families and futures took place on February 14, it still feels like it just happened yesterday.

When it comes to news, timeliness is key. To greenlight the publishing of an outdated story is a death sentence in the world of media. The discussion we had was not one of whether or not this topic needed to have discourse surrounding it, but whether or not individuals would still identify with an issue that is a couple weeks old.

Collectively, we came to a realization. This issue is as relevant today as it was the day it happened. This issue is as relevant as it was April 20, 1999 at Columbine, and this issue is relevant to our future, because the truth is this will happen again.

Without entering directly into the precarious politics of gun control, there is an issue we can talk about with a clear heart – whether we feel safe here at Point Park.

It is a comfort to know we have an entire police department we can call our own, and one that seems to keep us relatively informed, at that. But do we know, without any hesitation, if an active shooter situation were to arise, we would be protected without reserve? And the lives of our friends, classmates and professors would be protected?

We believe, emphatically, the answer is yes.