‘ NOBODY NEEDS MORE GUNS’
With walkout, Senn High School students latest to push for gun control measures
In the wake of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, 17- year- old Stephanie Navarrete says she hasn’t felt safe nearly 1,400 miles away at Nicholas Senn High School.
On Friday, Navarrete, a senior, joined hundreds of others from Senn to issue an S. O. S. of a different kind — one urging Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D- Ill., and other legislators to “save our students.”
“There’s so much going on and we’re very aware of it,” Navarrete said. “Just because it hasn’t happened here doesn’t mean that it can’t.’’
Marching down to Schakowsky’s field office on Broadway Street, students, armed with megaphones and signs, chanted “never again” and “no guns, no NRA, no more violence, USA.”
Onlookers honked or cheered as the students passed.
The walkout at Senn is among the latest in a wave of student- led actions calling for gun reform across the country and in the Chicago area.
Last Wednesday, students at Youth Connection Leadership Academy walked out of school, calling for community resources to address gun violence.
Students also led a march for gun reform days after the Parkland shooting from Federal Plaza to Trump Tower.
Students at Senn had a weeklong call to action, featuring a rally, a class on protesting and two days of sign making before Friday’s walkout.
Meitav Aaron, one of the organizers, said the purpose of the day was to rally for gun control and remember those who have died in mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, at a concert in Las Vegas and others.
“The victims of the epidemic that is gun violence in America are not just some cold statistic, some sad number,” Aaron said. “They were people. They were not mere numbers, but someone’ s whole world .”
Senn senior Ruby Levin said the current state of inaction at the federal level is “unacceptable,” and that the turnout at Friday’s meeting shows she and other students are serious.
“Nobody needs more guns,” Levin said. “People have a right to bear arms, but this is too much and it has gone on for too long. We need more security, not more high- powered weapons like the ones we keep seeing in these shootings.”