This is why we walked out

March 14th marked the one month anniversary of the Parkland shooting. Students all across the nation walked out in remembrance of the the seventeen lives lost. My school was one of many that walked out to stand in solidarity with the students at Parkland. However, in honor of free speech, my school also allowed a pro gun rally to go on at the same time.

The fact that the rally existed and the insensitivity of the pro gun rally reflects the issues that plague our society today. People will march to support guns in protest of a walkout that’s aim is to make sure nobody else has to die like the seventeen students at Parkland did.

It’s clear that guns have not only become more protected than people’s lives, but they also more important than their lives, and it’s gotten to a point where school isn’t even a safe place anymore.

Teachers have to take time off from teaching to tell students what to do in case of a school shooting.

Students aren’t supposed to leave for school in the morning not knowing whether they’ll make it home or not. We’re supposed to be scared of failing a test, not getting murdered in a classroom.

We’re not crisis actors. We’re not trying to create chaos. We’re trying to right a wrong that we see. We don’t walkout because we want to ditch class.

We walk out because nobody should die at school.

We walk out because no school should ever have to hold a mass shooting drill.

We walk out because someone with a knife couldn’t hurt as many people as a person with a gun.

How many more people have to lose their lives before everyone will finally decide that enough is enough?

That the problem isn’t the user of the weapon, but the gun itself?

The Declaration of Independence declared that every citizen has the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” At what point will someone’s right to live be more important than someone else’s right to own a gun?