Facts on School Gun Violence

“If the walkout becomes destructive, disruptive, or chaotic, the purpose of the walkout is lost, and the poor behavior decision is all that gains attention, and what could lead to violation of school rules,” DeMaree said.

The only punishment that may occur due to participating in a walkout would be the consequences of missing a class, only proving to be a problem for students who frequently don’t show up.

“As long as the protest remains peaceful, the biggest consequence would be that the students would be marked with an unexcused absence from their class,” DeMaree said.

Peacefulness in protests is a major factor in whether or not students will be punished. DeMaree explains that if protests become chaotic, students can be punished for violating the code of conduct.

“What’s important to remember, is that when the protest becomes unpeaceful, the power of the protest is lost and all that is remembered is the behavior of the students,” DeMaree said.

Why do we protest?

According to the K-12 School Shooting Database, in 2010 there were a total of 15 school shooting incidents. In this year alone, there have been a total of 126 school shooting incidents with a total of 1,312 in the last 13 years.

“Schools are statistically the

“There have been 380 school shootings since 1999, according to Post data”

-Washington Post

“Since Columbine in 1999, more than 338,000 students in the U.S. have experienced gun violence at school.”

- The Sandy Hook Promise Organization safest place for our students,” principal, Dale Longenecker said.

Alicen Silva, a student who participated in the walkout, disagrees with Longenecker and is tired of always having school shootings and ALICE drills in the back of her mind.

“This isn’t normal, I am tired of hearing about people my age, and even younger going through the unimaginable and I wanted to do something about it,” Silva said.

Junior Gunnar Galloway, explains that he chose to walk out because he felt that it was a simple, but effective way to stand up for what he believes in.

“What pushed me to walk out was the fact that it was a harmless yet, in my opinion, effective way of protesting issues around gun violence and show ing the schools that it’s ridiculous the amount of measures not being taken and how easy it is to walk out, and walk in,” Galloway said.

Posch explains how she had dark, trying to do their school work. Posch doesn’t think that any student should have to ever experience that.

“I was lucky and was never in an actual school shooting and I know there’re many kids and adults in the world who have had to go to school and not know if they will get to come home,” Posch said.” I wanted to do it for them.

Many students didn’t know about the walkout, while other students heard about it from siblings or on social media.

“None of us really knew much about it at the time but we learned more about what it was about and when and all the details,” Posch said.

Those who participated explained that it felt good to participate in something like this.

“I just felt empowered in a way, like I finally am doing something important,” Silva said.

Junior Bryan Swilor explained that many people were harsh towards him, and felt that because nobody knew about the walkout, that it just simply didn’t matter.

“I get not wanting to [participate] yourself, no problem with that, I was just a little taken aback by how some people kept arguing that no one was going to participate, so it doesn’t matter anyway, but that’s why I chose to participate,” Swilor said.

Posch explains that at first it was a bit awkward, walking out in the middle of class, due to not very many people participating.

“But it felt really good in the end to be able to stand up for something I believe in and get to participate in something that meant a lot to me and get to do it with others who felt the same as me,” Posch said.

Through all the worry about receiving consequences for the protest, and the happiness with getting to leave school a little early, Galloway couldn’t stop thinking about how crazy the whole situation was.

“I just wish that it wasn’t this easy. I wish I didn’t have to have fears like this run around in my mind that someone, literally anyone, could walk in. No student ID or anything. And commit many heinous acts,” Galloway said. e

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