'Am I next?': Colorado Springs high school students demand action on gun safety laws during walkout
Apr. 5—Palmer High School students marched to the steps of City Hall on Wednesday in protest of what they say is the prioritization of the firearm industry over students, asking their representatives in unison, "Am I next?"
The noon walkout was part of a nationwide protest movement coordinated by nonprofit activist group Students Demand Action "to make sure lawmakers know that we need gun safety at all levels."
"Guns are being more taken into consideration than actual childrens' lives," freshman student Clowie Burkhalter said. "At the moment, this is more important than the class period that many kids could be missing because they were in a school shooting."
There have been more than 130 mass shootings in 2023 that involved four or more people, according to independent data collection and research group Gun Violence Archive. That averages to just over one per day.
An analysis by The Washington Post found the number of children exposed to gun violence in schools has risen from 187,000 in 2018 to 338,000 today despite a pandemic that closed campuses for roughly a year. Last year was the worst for school shootings, the analysis further found, with 34 lives lost and more than 43,000 children exposed to gunfire.
"Being a student shouldn't be a death sentence but once again, gun violence has forced its way into our schools, leaving nothing but pain, trauma, and tragedy in its wake," Students Demand Action's call to organize reads.
"We need more than thoughts and prayers. We demand action from our lawmakers now."
Dozens of Colorado schools were expected to participate in the Students Demand Action walkout, including a handful in Colorado Springs.
The nonprofit group is dedicated to securing "common sense gun laws" and ending gun violence — the leading cause of death for young people in the U.S. — by organizing peaceful protests. Since its launch in 2016, Students Demand Action has established more than 600 groups across the country.
Palmer has several armed security guards and an SRO assigned to the school, said Principal Laura Disney, but safety nonetheless remains a top-of-mind issue.
"I need to make sure that I pay attention to what's going on, whether kids are in a good place or not in a good place," Disney said.
Palmer students say they regularly have conversations on how they would defend themselves in the event of an active shooter situation. Grabbing the flagpole and sharpening it in the pencil sharpener. Taking Windex and spraying it in the shooter's eyes.
"I think it's our way of coping a little bit," senior student Zoe Huesgen Hobbs said. "When you're sitting there in the dark (during a drill), for a second the scenario runs across your mind of like, if there's an actually shooting, I'd be taking out my phone and texting my parents that I love them. I could see my friends die in front of me."
A spokesperson for Colorado Springs School District 11 reminds families of high school students to call and let the school know in advance if they wish to allow their children to participate in nonschool- or district-sponsored walkouts or events. Elementary and middle school students must have a family member accompany them to participate.
Most importantly, the spokesperson said, the district supports its students' rights to free speech and asks them to exercise that right respectfully, peacefully and safely.
"It's amazing to watch them come together because that's one of those skills that we don't necessarily teach explicitly in the curriculum," Disney said.
"Any time you can get students to organize something and understand what it is that they're organizing and learn how to communicate and be problem solvers, it makes me proud."
