Students around the country in state after state held walkouts on Wednesday in support of urgent action to stop gun violence. The protests were held soon after another school shooting that this time took place at a private school in Nashville, Tennessee, where three young children and three adults were killed.
That incident, though, of course isn’t alone. Already this year, the nonprofit organization known as the Gun Violence Archive has recorded over 380 young people from ages 12 through 17 who have been killed by gun violence, and there have been 65 deaths and counting among those even younger, from birth to 11 years of age. Although Democrats at the national level like President Joe Biden and his team continue supporting measures like a ban on assault weapons and an expansion to background checks associated with gun purchases, GOP opposition remains an issue. In some individual states, like Michigan and Illinois, Democratic leaders have been able to approve or enact sweeping protections against gun violence, but the patchwork of updates to policy these leaders have established still leaves a lot of the country largely unprotected in these ways.
Student protests were seen in Texas, North Carolina, Washington, Oregon, Tennessee, New York, and elsewhere. In Texas, those demonstrating for change included students at Uvalde High School, who go to school in the locale where the mass shooting last year at Robb Elementary School saw nearly two dozen killed in an incident perpetrated with a legally obtained firearm, meaning a change to the legal parameters around those weapons could’ve stopped it from happening. Texas journalist Sam Owens said the demonstrators in Uvalde went to the town square, near a memorial to victims of the attack at that elementary school.
Those participating included students throughout various age ranges. At Trinity Episcopal School in Charlotte, North Carolina, hundreds — including quite young kids — joined the demonstrations. It’s these children, of course, among those endangered by gun violence. The children killed in the Nashville shooting were all under 10 years old. Already, a then-student at Robb Elementary School who suffered the loss of two of her friends in the attack joined protests back in Texas held earlier in the capital.
In video after video from the walkout protests held in various places around the United States, the crowds are large — larger, it’s worth noting, than the pro-Trump crowd often seemed outside the Manhattan courthouse where Trump was arraigned in his criminal case earlier this week. At White Station High School in Memphis, Tennessee, a video from amid the protest shows students filling up nearly the entire visible area, save for a parking lot and an athletics field in the background. Check out some clips below:
They marched about a mile from the high school to the town square, where there is a public memorial for all the Robb Elementary shooting victims. #nationalwalkout #gunviolence #Uvalde pic.twitter.com/2tpFPUezYM
— Sam Owens (@SamOwensphoto) April 5, 2023
Close to 200 students from Trinity Episcopal walked out today. Grades 5th-8th planned the protest after the masa shooting in Nashville. pic.twitter.com/XJiC5BetHj
— Lowell Rose (@LowellRoseNews) April 5, 2023
About 200 students walked out.
— Briseida Holguin (@BriseidaHolguin) April 5, 2023
Sorry folks, in the moment, I transposed some words. The front of the march chanted: Our blood, your hands.”
— Suzette Smith (@suzettesmith) April 5, 2023
Signs read “Protect kids, not guns,” “Call your senator,” & “This is a school zone, not a war zone.”
I spoke with a student organizer who says they held a similar protest last year, but nothing has changed. She says they have to keep adding their voices to the conversation @WRAL pic.twitter.com/6ONoqYyxSn
— Monica Casey WRAL (@MonicaCaseyNews) April 5, 2023
A scene to show how many White Station High School students skipped lunch and showed up to the walkout today. pic.twitter.com/t4RcUWTQx3
— MLK50: Justice Through Journalism (@MLK50Memphis) April 5, 2023
We’re determined to be the last school shooting generation.
Right now, thousands of students nationwide are walking out of class to demand action from our lawmakers and gun makers on gun violence. We need ACTION, not hollow thoughts and prayers. pic.twitter.com/EN9mEMxuzE
— Students Demand Action (@StudentsDemand) April 5, 2023
Image: Students Demand Action on Twitter, used only for editorial purposes