Students from around the country walked out of class Wednesday in protest following a deadly mass shooting at a Nashville, Tennessee, elementary school last week.
About 300 walkouts were organized across 41 states and the District of Columbia to begin the “week of action” to push for firearm law changes.
In Uvalde, Texas, students were especially emotional as they left classes in protest. Last year a former student killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school there. Dozens of students from schools around the district met in Uvalde’s town square where a memorial was set up to honor those killed in school shootings.
Nearly 100 high school and college students left classes in South Florida to honor those killed in Tennessee and to protest legislation passed in the Sunshine State that lets citizens carry concealed firearms without permits. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the bill Monday after it passed in the Legislature by a wide margin last week.
“Here in the free state of Florida, government will not get in the way of law-abiding Americans who want to defend themselves and their families,” state Sen. Jay Collins, Tampa Republican and sponsor of the legislation, said, according to Politico.
On the other side, Florida International University student organizer Nyah Chalker told WSVN, a Miami Fox affiliate, “There’s less and less regulation, there’s no safety around these objects, and I think it’s repulsive, and it terrifies me.”
The largest demonstrations seemed to come out of Tennessee. In Nashville, nearly 1,000 students walked out of classes, including middle school and elementary children. Many students carried signs calling for an end to violence in schools as well as more gun control legislation.
The walkout comes one day after the March for Our Lives protest that saw thousands of students go to the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville to demand action on guns.
• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.