Thank you all for coming last week and protesting gun violence with us. We send our condolences to the Parkland community and every individual affected by these instances of gun violence. We want you to know that we are fighting right alongside you. All of you who are participating today are helping promote the fact that we as students are powerful, that we are the next generation’s leaders, and that we are a force to be reckoned with. We are sick of inaction.
We have grown up in an era of school shootings: Parkland, Sandy Hook, Columbine, Virginia Tech, and even Bethel, Alaska. In all of our years in school, we’ve routinely done lockdown and ALICE drills, hiding in the corners of rooms. Too many lives have been lost because of our country’s lack of progress in fighting gun violence. Already since the tragedy in Parkland, Florida, there have been two incidents where a student was able to bring a gun to school. Three more people are dead because of this. After every school shooting, we send our thoughts and prayers, and then the event fades out of the news and people stop talking about it. Society has become desensitized to these horrors that plague our country. Is it too much to ask to be able to go to school and not worry about getting shot?
We need to work together to fight for our safety. Students, our voice matters. Show up and testify about gun legislation. To any politicians and people of power listening, we demand change and action. We need funding for mental health and gun violence research. To our legislators: you’ve already taken enough from us — our funding, our teachers, our classes, our resources. Please let us at least hold onto our safety. Alaska legislators, we urge you to look at your colleagues around the country who are moving gun legislation forward and follow suit. Weapons of war have no place in our schools. We are watching, and if you don’t act for the sake of our safety, you will be voted out by our generation. When leaders act like children, and children act like leaders, you know change is coming.
Katie McKenna,
Juneau