MHS students protest against gun violence

Danny Biniecki, Mentor Editor-in-Chief

With thoughts swirling about gun violence and its problem in America, Manhattan High School students organized a protest in order to raise awareness about the issue at hand and as a response to the Nashville shooting. 

On April 5, over 50 students walked out of their third hour and outside of the school with their voices and signs reading “Am I next?” and “I’m too young to die.” The protest lasted until after school at 3:05 p.m., where most students left, but some stayed until far after keeping up the protest for other students who were driving home and waiting for the buses. 

Each student had a strong opinion about gun laws, including senior Kat Lea who attended the protest.

“The gun laws need more work,” Lea said. “Working on students’ mental health is important and making sure to make school less of a stressor and provide a safe place from home life is important.”

Through the duration of the hour, students walked down Poyntz Avenue yelling “Love your kids, not your guns’’ and more to MHS’ neighbors and parents who came to pick up students. 

With some states, including Kansas, not doing anything to limit guns, but states like Tennessee actively trying to ban drag queen performances, students took immediate offense and felt as if their lives weren’t being taken seriously, holding up signs that addressed that lawmakers should “ban guns, not drag queens.”

Ever since the lockdown back in February and the more recent Nashville shooting, students have become more frightened over getting shot.

“When you have a shooting threat so close to an actual shooting where people died it makes you go ‘Oh, this is a thing and it could happen to me, it could happen to my brother, it could happen to anyone,” junior Allie Chaney said.

All students present were there to educate and support the effort to end gun violence in America but one student had first hand experience of being in a school shooting.