Stabroek News

U.S. students walk out again to protest gun violence

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LITTLETON, Colo., (Reuters) - Demanding an end to gun violence and tougher restrictio­ns on firearm sales, thousands of students again walked out of classes across the United States on Friday in hopes of putting pressure on politician­s ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Timed to coincide with the 19th anniversar­y of the Columbine High School massacre, students left classes at midmorning, many waving placards with slogans including “I should be worried about grades, not guns,” and “Enough is enough.”

Organizers said students from more than 2,600 schools and institutio­ns were scheduled to take part, but that was fewer than participat­ed in a similar walkout last month. In some places, demonstrat­ors even met with resistance from school administra­tors.

“Today is about being proactive and being empowered and really funneling all that energy and anger we have as

young people into some productive change,” one of the student organizers, Lane Murdock of Connecticu­t, told Reuters.

Olivia Pfeil, a 16-yearold sophomore from a high school in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, held a sign bearing the names of mass shooting victims. “We’re expecting change or come next election cycle we will support politician­s who are listening to the voices of the youth,” she said.

It was the second student walkout since the Feb. 14 massacre of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and the emergence of a national student movement to end gun violence and toughen restrictio­ns on firearms sales.

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