At least 20 Minnesota schools saw students walk out of class Friday to demand stricter gun control laws in the wake of a deadly mass shooting at a school in Minneapolis.
Students walked out at noon from Washburn High School and Justice Page Middle School in Minneapolis, a few blocks from Annunciation Catholic Church and School where two children were killed and 21 — mostly children — were injured during a mass shooting on Aug. 27.
They carried signs that read “How loud do the screams need to be before you listen?” and “My life is worth more than your gun.” Some chanted “I can’t outrun a gun.”
Similar scenes played out in St. Paul, Chanhassen and Edina.
“This isn’t about politics. It is about safety in schools and protecting our children and teachers,” said Mabel Porthan, 16, who helped organize the protest at Chanhassen High School.
School shootings “shouldn't be something that we're having to worry about,” she added. “It’s awful … and an end needs to be put to it.”
Chanhassen High student Noah Aho, 17, said he hoped the walkout showed how important it was to make legislative change in order to stop more gun violence from happening.
“Students are dying, and there's no left, there's no right, there's no blue, there's no red,” Aho said. “No matter how few or how many or how frequently it happens, I think we all collectively believe that one is too many, one death is too many.”
Nicole Kohler, a freshman at the University of Minnesota Duluth, joined the protest by walking out of class at noon in northern Minnesota.
She said the fear of being shot is very real to her. “You never know if it's going to be your school next or if it's going to be your sibling … or your friend,” she said. “It is very, very scary.”
Parents of children killed and injured in the shootings have also called for measures to ban semiautomatic weapons and address gun violence.
Minnesota lawmakers from both parties say they’re open to returning to the Capitol to consider policy changes.
Gov. Tim Walz and fellow Democrats want to impose new curbs on high-powered guns and ammunition clips. Republicans and gun rights groups predict those restrictions wouldn’t advance.
“Weapons that were made to inflict mass casualties and kill people should not be in our neighborhoods, and that feels loud and clear everywhere except for under the dome, in both Congress and in St. Paul,” said Rep. Emma Greenman, DFL-Minneapolis, who attended the student walkout near Annunciation in Minneapolis.
“No kid should be talking to me about how they're afraid to go to school because this happens,” she said.
