Some students at UNC feel like gun violence has become a part of their curriculum since they were in middle school practicing lockdown drills. Hunter Rensink is a senior at UNC and says that he remembers joining protests in high school against gun violence and feels like nothing has changed since then.
Nya Robinson was one of the organizers of the event and says that she got the idea to help organize the event because she also has been protesting gun violence since high school. She even showed up to the protest wearing orange, the unofficial color of gun violence awareness. Small orange ribbons were even being handed out at the protest, their color reminiscent of the orange tips that fake guns are required to have.
Robinson and others joined thousands of students across the nation on April 5th who walked out of their schools protesting gun violence. A national school walkout movement was organized through social media by the organization Students Demand Action: For Gun Sense in America. One of the first organized national walkouts happened back in 2018 after a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where 17 students and staff were shot to death.
Guns are now the leading cause of death for children, teens, and young adults under the age of 25 according to the Center for Disease Control. Researchers at the John Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions found that 45,000 lives in 2020.
There was even a binder where students were able to write down their concerns and have them mailed to Colorado representatives.
