By Megan Kelly
Talon Staff
The lawn inside the traffic circle in front of Barrington High School was packed with students and a handful of faculty members on Thursday, May 26, all of whom walked out of the building to protest recent mass shootings at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.
“My goal was to spread awareness of the seriousness and severity of gun violence in America,” said BHS senior Caleb Schultz who organized the peaceful protest.
Nineteen students and two teachers were killed by an armed 18-year old gunman in Texas and ten days earlier another 18-year old killed ten people in a grocery store in New York.
“I believe that we must learn about a problem before we can properly fix it,” said Schultz. “Informing the public is the first step in enacting change.” Caleb’s purpose with the walkout was to increase awareness and encourage more students to take action in reducing gun violence, both locally and nationally.
The news of the school shooting hit many BHS students differently than it otherwise might have in the wake of a written threat of gun violence written by a student on the door of a bathroom stall on December 13, 2021.The unidentified student has since been identified and faces three criminal charges related to the threat.
“No one truly recognizes the terrible effects of gun violence until it happens to them or to someone they love,” said Junior Amirah Woodruff who attended the protest.
There have been more than 250 mass shootings in the United States so far this year as of June 3, according to The Washington Post. A mass shooting is a crime where four or more people — not including the shooter — are injured or killed. Not a single week in 2022 has passed without at least four mass shootings in U.S. as reported by the Post.
Last week, Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee signed several bills into law, according to The Providence Journal, each of which would:
ban large-capacity gun magazines, which have enabled numerous mass shootings, including the massacres in Uvalde, Tex., Buffalo, N.Y., Newtown, Conn., Parkland, Fla., and too many others.
raise the legal age to purchase firearms or ammunition in Rhode Island from 18 to 21, with exceptions for police, state marshals or correctional officers and active-duty military or National Guard members
change the definitions of “rifle” and “shotgun” consistent with federal law, and prohibits the open carry of any loaded rifle or shotgun in public.
“One of the easiest ways to limit gun violence,” said junior Anna Saal, one of the students who spoke during the walkout, “is to make sure buying a firearm — particularly one with high ammunition capacity — is not an extremely easy process.”
Photos courtesy of The Barrington Times.