COLUMBUS – High school students from central Ohio joined their peers from Maine to Arizona, staging walkouts to protest gun violence in the wake of the shooting at a Florida high school last week that killed 17 people.
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At Dublin Scioto High School, about 200 students sat outside in silence for 17 minutes and wrote notes of support that will be mailed to survivors of the Florida shooting. Afterward, they gathered in a circle to discuss how they could push for stronger gun control.
“No child should have to go to school and be scared for their life,” said Daviyana Warren, a 15-year-old sophomore. “It hits close to home because it’s happening to us.”
At the same time, President Donald Trump was meeting at the White House with students and parents, including survivors of the Parkland, Fla., shooting, where he said he was open to considering the idea of arming teachers.
The president of the 1.7 million-member American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, called arming teachers “one of the worst ideas I have heard in a series of really, really, really bad ideas.” Nevertheless, a tweeted offer by Butler County, Ohio, Sheriff Richard Jones to train local teachers to carry a concealed handgun garnered so much interest that he quickly capped the number at 300.
— Richard K. Jones (@butlersheriff) February 21, 2018
Several hundred students at Upper Arlington High School walked out at noon, as did students at Grove City High School, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
The walkout in Upper Arlington lasted 17 minutes. The names of the 17 victims in Florida were read aloud followed by a period of silence.
Some students at schools near Cleveland also walked out of class.
Westlake High School students in Westlake held signs reading “Enough is enough.” Some students who walked out of Lakewood High School in Lakewood, near Cleveland, chanted “We want change.”
“These gun deaths are happening like every day, and we’re not doing anything to change it. It’s ridiculous,” said Rebecca Parch, a student who organized the walkout at Lakewood. “It’s just too many lives lost, and I think that teenagers are just done with it now.”
More walkouts are planned, as is a “youth-organized rally” is scheduled for the Statehouse at 3:30 p.m., organized by the Amnesty International Columbus Alternative High School Chapter.
Students and parents appealed to President Donald Trump on Wednesday to set politics aside and protect America’s school children from the scourge of gun violence. Trump listened intently to the raw emotion and pledged action, including the possibility of arming teachers.