Carly Novell survived the shooting rampage at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida by hiding in a closet — and her grandfather also escaped a lone gunman the same way almost 70 years ago.
The 17-year-old senior tweeted on Thursday about her being the second member in her family to survive a mass shooting.
“This is my grandpa. When he was 12 years old, he hid in a closet while his family was murdered during the first mass shooting in America. Almost 70 years later, I also hid in a closet from a murderer. These events shouldn’t be repetitive. Something has to change,” Novell tweeted.
Her grandfather, Charles Cohen, survived a mass shooting by a lone gunman, who was considered to be the first single-episode mass murderer in American history.
In an interview with CNN’s Don Lemon on “CNN Tonight,” Novell’s mother, Merri Novell, said she was always wary of school shootings.
“This keeps happening over and over again,” Novell said. “It started all the way back in 1949. And nothing has really changed because the gun laws haven’t changed.”
What happened on September 6, 1949
Howard Unruh was accused of killing more than a dozen people in the deadly shooting spree. He was diagnosed with “dementia praecox, mixed type, with pronounced catatonic and paranoid coloring” and was ruled criminally insane, making him immune from prosecution.
Cohen’s parents and grandmother were killed in their New Jersey home by Unruh, a World War II veteran September 6, 1949.
On “CNN Tonight,” Carly also expressed her frustration with perpetual inaction around gun control after mass shootings.
“I just want people to stop talking about it and then not doing anything,” she said. “People keep saying your thoughts and prayers and all of these things, but it doesn’t make a difference if nothing ever changes. This happens over and over again and people are dying, and it seems like it doesn’t matter because, what are thoughts and prayers going to do when people are already dead?”
The high school senior added that people can provide their thoughts and prayers and also put those same words into action to prevent other mass shootings.
“You can talk about what needs to change and you can also be mourning the victims,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be one or the other.”
The 17-year-old went on to speak out about her response to Fox News’ Tomi Lahren’s comments on gun control.
Lahren, a conservative commentator tweeted that the “left” should stop their anti-gun agenda.
“Can the Left let the families grieve for even 24 hours before they push their anti-gun and anti-gunowner agenda?” she wrote. “My goodness. This isn’t about a gun it’s about another lunatic.”
The high school shooting survivor told Lemon that she was upset with Lahren’s remarks and had to respond.
“I was hiding in a closet for 2 hours,” she wrote. “It was about guns. You weren’t there, you don’t know how it felt. Guns give these disgusting people the ability to kill other human beings. This IS about guns and this is about all the people who had their life abruptly ended because of guns.”
“I think it’s different when you hear it from someone who was there,” she said. “While we were in there, we were all still talking about gun control and how something needs to change. We were in a closet and we were still thinking about this. It matters all the time. There is no waiting period.”
