I had the strangest premonition last weekend.

We were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in the high school bleachers in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, watching hundreds of band students perform on the field. About 30 school bands from around the region had gathered for a competition.

Maybe it was because the entire area was so tightly packed with students, teachers and parents. I glanced at the crowd around me. The thought hit me suddenly.

"What if a gunman starts firing?"

Maybe it's because of that story of the mom who ran past armed police to get to her children inside Uvalde Elementary School, where 19 children and two teachers were shot to death.

"How could I even protect my kid here?"

Just a couple of days later, one of my closest friends sent a frantic text: There was an active shooter at her child's school. Her daughter was safe. Then came a text from another friend, who wrote to say her child had stayed home that day. Also safe.

But a student and a health teacher were killed at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School in south St. Louis on Oct. 24. Seven more were injured. This happened in a school that has metal detectors, locked doors and security officers.

Parents send their children to school dreading this kind of nightmare.

Maybe my anxiety was already heightened because Texas lawmakers recently decided to send DNA collection kits to parents. You know, in case their babies' bodies are too mangled by a shooter firing an AR-15 in a classroom to be identified. Gov. Greg Abbott thinks this is a better idea than making guns harder to obtain for the potentially violent and homicidal.

My colleagues at the paper rushed to CVPA and reported harrowing details, like the account from Dakota Willard, 14, who attends Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience -- also housed in the CVPA building. Willard said he saw what looked like one person, a girl, down at the end of the hallway that joins the two schools.

He said it looked like she was trying to run away by the way she was lying on the floor.

"What I saw was traumatizing," Willard said, but added, "I'm OK. I don't need any special help."

You do need special help, Dakota. We all do. We are all traumatized. Those of us who have felt panic receiving a lockdown message from our kids' schools. Those of us who have grieved a loved one lost to gun violence. Those of us who have lived through an active shooting at a mall, at work, at a concert, at the movies, at school. Those of us who have said over and over again that we don't have to live this way. That mass shootings happen this frequently only in America.

Because of our gun laws. Because of the gun lobby. Because of craven politicians. Because of worthless thoughts and prayers.

Missouri has some of the worst gun laws in the country. There's no law requiring background checks on unlicensed gun sales. People can carry hidden, loaded handguns in public without a permit or safety training. There are no laws prohibiting domestic abusers from possessing guns. Republican lawmakers even passed a law that prohibits local police and highway patrols from enforcing several federal gun laws.

I thought about that when I read the words from Tonya Neal, a parent whose daughter attends CVPA: At 9:19 a.m., she received a text from her daughter that read, "Mom, I love you."

Neal didn't realize until later that there was an active shooter at the school. Her daughter is safe.

Her baby might have wanted to tell her mom she loved her one last time.

This is what we've trained our children to do.

Because our lawmakers have failed to protect them.

Ten years ago, Hailey Koob was living overseas with her family and planning to come back to the United States for college.

She had been born and raised in St. Louis before the family moved to Doha, Qatar. Since she would only have one summer to visit colleges, she researched extensively and made a list of about 40 schools she wanted to see in person.

"No, that's not possible," her mom said. She told her to cut the list in half.

Koob, along with her mom and a friend, ended up visiting 20 colleges on the East Coast and in the Midwest over two weeks. At some points, the tours blurred together. But the visits helped her narrow down her long list.

"Some, I knew I didn't want to go there because of the tour guide," Koob said. Other campuses were so large that she felt lost. Several would have created a significant financial burden.

When they were finished with their tours, the trio went to stay with family in Missouri for the rest of the trip. Koob realized that despite all the tours and research, she still hadn't found the right school. At the last minute, she decided to visit a few schools in Missouri.

As soon as she stepped on the campus at Truman State University, a small public university in Kirksville, she loved the size. She connected with the other students on the tour. When the tour guide talked about the school's communication disorders program, she was intrigued. She had planned to study biochemistry.

This visit was making her rethink her entire list -- and her future major.

College counselors say students should try to visit four to six campuses if they are unsure of what they might be looking for. Some students wait until they receive admission offers and financial aid packages to visit campuses, using those experiences to help them decide where to attend.

My husband and I have taken each of our children to visit four colleges to help inform their decisions. I was struck by how much the process has changed from when I applied to college three decades ago.

Today's information sessions and tours are designed to make as many students as possible want to apply. A larger application pool at selective colleges means a lower admission rate, ultimately helping the university in its rankings. The info sessions are slick marketing campaigns designed to sell the school, and it's important that prospective students and parents understand that.

During one presentation at a highly selective school known for its academic rigor, I wondered why the video made the college experience look like an extended trip to Disney World. Also, high schoolers can be influenced by the most random details during a campus visit. One friend shared that her 17-year-old son landed on his No. 1 choice for college because, during the tour, he had been impressed by the attractive girls he noticed on campus. Another friend confided that her child ruled out a university based on the tour guide's response to a single question.

I remember moving a college up to my first choice after seeing its bookstore. It looked like the kind of place I wanted to shop. A very mature and thoughtful way to make a life-altering decision, I know.

While the benefits of visiting colleges are obvious -- a chance to see how you feel on the campus, talk to other students and experience the vibe -- there are potential hazards. You may fall in love with a "dream school" that ultimately doesn't admit you, or that you can't afford to attend. Parents and students should keep reminding themselves that there are many places to get an excellent education and have a great experience. Keep an open mind throughout the process.

Koob, who had spent hours planning tour routes and filled a binder with notes from nearly two dozen college visits, ended up graduating from Truman State with a major in communication disorders. Neither the school nor the subject was on her radar prior to that last-minute tour.

"Looking back on it, I feel like it was the best choice for me," she said.

When Barbara Sheinbein, 64, went to vote in the April election, a friend drove her to the polls. Her friend went inside the polling location in St. Louis County and told a worker that Sheinbein wanted to use an accessible voting machine because she is blind. She can't read a printed ballot.

"We have a little issue," the worker said. One of the scanners had broken down, so they were using the scanner on the accessible voting machine. There wasn't another accessible one for her to use.

Sheinbein declined to have someone read the ballot to her and mark her choices; she wanted to keep her vote private. Instead, they ended up driving to another location that had a working machine.

Not every person with a disability is able to do that.

Nearly 61 million Americans have a disability, making the group the country's largest minority. But historically, Americans with disabilities have some of the lowest voter participation rates, according to Denise Lieberman, director and general counsel for the Missouri Voter Protection Coalition. The barriers to getting registered and casting a ballot are insurmountable for many.

Those voting rates improved significantly during the pandemic, when many states expanded curbside, absentee and mail-in voting. However, Republican-controlled state legislatures have rolled back access to voting in more than a dozen states since the last election. The new restrictions will disproportionately impact low-income voters, minorities and people with disabilities.

A national expert on voting rights, Lieberman is leading the legal fight against the barriers to voting that were recently enacted by the Missouri legislature. The coalition hotline frequently receives reports from voters who struggle to enter older voting locations that lack fully ADA-complaint entrances. Another common complaint involves places where the accessible equipment is broken or unavailable.

If you have a disability or illness, you are entitled to curbside voting, Lieberman said. Voters don't have to provide any medical information about a disability. They are entitled to have their polling location permanently moved to one that is accessible, and members in the same household can also vote there, she said.

Sometimes the poll workers are poorly informed about the accommodations that must be present for those with disabilities. Sheinbein recalled another incident from a previous election where the device to hear the ballot was available, but the headphones to use it were broken. Since then, she has brought a pair of headphones with her to vote.

Even the process of getting registered can present significant obstacles.

Aimee Robertson of O'Fallon, Missouri, is the parent of an 18-year-old son with profound hearing loss and other disabilities. She documented their ordeal trying to get him registered to vote earlier this year in a letter to the League of Women Voters.

Prior to the changes in state law going into effect next month, her son was able to use his original birth certificate and a bank statement to cast his ballot, but state lawmakers have decided that those forms of identification are no longer good enough. Her son does not have a driver's license. It took Robertson several days and repeated trips to the licensing office to get a state-issued ID. His birth certificate, school ID and bank statement were not enough proof of his identity, so they had to order a replacement copy of his Social Security card -- in person.

"I consider us to be lucky in that we do live within 10 miles of a licensing office," she wrote, "but if we were more rural, I would have most likely opted to throw in the towel rather than jump through all the hoops to get the identification he now needs to vote." She also questioned why certain documents, like his birth certificate, Social Security card and proof of residence, are good enough to get a valid form of photo identification, but not good enough to present while voting.

In the end, Robertson had to take 2 1/2 days off work to get her son's registration completed. She said they were never offered the free state ID that Missouri is supposed to provide.

If Robertson "lived further from the license place, or if my son hadn't had my help, he would just not be able to vote in November," she said.

It raises the question of why some lawmakers are so invested in making voting for certain groups so difficult.