Students across the United States have started walking out of class to mark the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre and demonstrate against gun violence in America.
The student demonstrations — planned in communities nationwide from Los Angeles, to Florida, and New York — carry with them a renewed urgency following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February, where 17 people were killed in what is now the deadliest high school shooting since the Columbine attack 19 years ago.
A website for the national walkout says that tens of thousands of students are expected to leave their classes Friday.
“National School Walkout is a movement powered and led by students across the country. We’re protesting congressional, state, and local failures to take action to prevent gun violence. America is the only country in the world where so many people are killed by guns, and yet our leaders do nothing about it,” the website reads. “In many states it’s more difficult to register to vote than it is to buy a rifle. Apparently to some politicians, a vote is scarier than a gun.”
The walkouts follow after months of intense debate surrounding America’s gun laws, led by students including those who survived the Parkland shooting on Valentine’s Day.
One month after that shooting, students held a similar school walkout to the one Friday, calling for an end to the gun violence epidemic that impacts all communities — from the affluent city of Parkland to struggling minority communities in the south side of Chicago.
“We hear about this every day. Ever since I was a child, I remember hearing about Columbine, I remember hearing about Sandy Hook [in 2012] – I was in 7th grade – and now I’m a senior, and this is still happening. I really don’t know why it is still happening,” Nande Trant, a 17-year-old senior in Brooklyn, told The Independent at the March walkout. “It needs to stop.”
Following that walkout, hundreds of thousands of people marched in Washington and across the country for the March for Our Lives demonstration that called on politicians to change gun laws — or face the wrath of a young and emerging electorate that organisers are pushing to register for the first time.
The pressure from students has led so far to limited successes in statehouses across the country.
In Florida, politicians passed passed rare gun control measures that lifted the age required to buy a firearm, while also allocating funds to boost school security. In Vermont, the state legislatures passed a series of gun control measures for the first time, including one that allowed authorities to take guns from a man who planned a school shooting, but was caught. In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo pushed for and implemented measures that allow courts to take firearms from people convicted of domestic violence abuses.
