On September 17th, across Colorado, there was a school walkout to address the issue of school shootings. A large number of students went out to protest, while others
(Gabby F) Right (Levi F)
took it as an excuse to leave school. The protest began at 1:30, when students started to leave class in large groups and marched down with signs to a designated corner to protest their beliefs and raise awareness about the major issue in America with school shootings.
According to “EducationWeek,” there have been a reported 232 school shootings since 2018 in America. The most recent school shooting, as of September 18th, was on September 10th in Colorado Springs. The shooter was critically injured 2 students before pulling a gun on himself. Colorado has been known for what was considered the first major school shooting in America at Columbine High School. The issue of school shootings has been a major concern for many students in schools across America, which inspired a crowd to form for a peaceful protest to raise awareness for school shootings.
The large and mighty crowd of High Schoolers from Mountain View had a lot to say about their reasons for protesting and their concerns about safety in school.
Levi Freitag, a small but mighty protester, had numerous issues he felt strongly about and wanted to speak out about. “School shootings have become way too normalized, and we have become desensitized to the violence.”, “I went out here with the hopes of bringing people together to protest gun violence, specifically against the school shooting violence,” Levi exclaimed. Levi had a lot of opinions on how to stop the issue of school shootings, including mental health support, more group mental health sessions, and better support for students who are struggling with their everyday lives.
When the question “Are you afraid to come out and protest with the current events happening in the world Levi said, “I believe that I should not have to be afraid of protesting against this violence, as it is my american right” “But in day and age with the amount of hate I feel like this is a reason to be a scared and speak out about major issues going on.”
With the size of the crowd going down around 2:50, there was still a strong but small crowd. It was a mix of ideas and opinions, but they were all there supporting each other for the protest for the awareness of gun violence. Whether they supported the private ownership of guns or thought they should be gone, they could all agree that gun violence should be stopped.
Author- Jake Brown
