On Friday, at 10 a.m. local time, students across the country walked out of their classrooms to protest what they see as continuing inaction to combat gun violence.

The action, titled the National School Walkout, comes 19 years to the day of the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado when 13 students were killed on April 20, 1999.

At the time, Columbine was the deadliest school shooting in modern U.S. history, but it has since been surpassed by the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17 people.

After the Parkland massacre, survivors organized a national action with a similar name: Enough! National School Walkout, which took place on March 14, a month after the shooting.

19 years ago today, these 13 people were killed at #Columbine High School in Colorado. Whether you are participating in the #NationalSchoolWalkout, or #DayOfService, remember these faces. This is why we fight. 19 years later, and this still happens. pic.twitter.com/qfkp6av9Hd — Sofie Whitney (@sofiewhitney) April 20, 2018

Unlike that walkout, where students left their classes for 17 minutes to commemorate the 17 Parkland victims, participants in Friday’s event left school for the day and will not return.

Although organizers of today’s protest weren’t alive during the Columbine tragedy, they see the shooting as a grim pivotal event that ushered in the epidemic of shootings across the country — and they are determined to put a stop to them.

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“We can rise up together and declare, with one ringing voice, that the age of national indifference towards the ever-growing death toll is over. We can change America forever, all before we reach 20 years of age.”

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Students at Cooper City High School walked out of class on the 19th anniversary of the Columbine massacre to form a heart on their football field for #NationalSchoolWalkout pic.twitter.com/GgnBVoDjXE — WSVN 7 News (@wsvn) April 20, 2018

“Keeping up the momentum is important,” Connecticut sophomore Lane Murdock, the student who conceived Friday’s walkout, told USA Today. “We saw that low after March for Our Lives” — the student-led series of demonstrations for gun violence prevention on March 24 — “but students aren’t quitting on this. Our generation is demanding change and won’t be ignored or swept under the rug.”

More than 2,600 National School Walkout events were planned around the country with tens of thousands of students expected to be involved, according to the event’s website.</s>Hundreds of school walkouts call for gun reform

"The reason they're rising up is they want to be able to go out in public and not live in fear."</s>Friday is the 19th anniversary of the shooting at Columbine High School that claimed the lives of 12 students and one teacher. A national school walkout is scheduled for tomorrow that could involve more than 2,500 schools. According to the event’s website, around 75 schools in Washington will be participating in the walkout, including Moses Lake High School.

Moses Lake experienced the horror of a school shooting just a few years prior to the Columbine tragedy on February 2, 1996, when 14 year old Barry Loukaitis killed his algebra teacher and two students at Frontier Middle School.

The April 20th walkout is scheduled to happen at 10:00 a.m. local time when students will observe a moment of silence for the Columbine victims. There may also be speeches or other kinds of rallies at each participating school.

Jason E. Glass, the Superintendent with Jeffco Public Schools and Columbine High School has asked Columbine students to participate in a day of service rather than join the National School Walkout on April 20th. Columbine students participated in the March 14 #Enough National School Walkout.</s>LITTLETON, Colo., (Reuters) – Demanding an end to gun violence and tougher restrictions on firearm sales, thousands of students again walked out of classes across the United States on Friday in hopes of putting pressure on politicians ahead of November’s midterm elections.

Timed to coincide with the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre, students left classes at midmorning, many waving placards with slogans including “I should be worried about grades, not guns,” and “Enough is enough.”

Organizers said students from more than 2,600 schools and institutions were scheduled to take part, but that was fewer than participated in a similar walkout last month. In some places, demonstrators even met with resistance from school administrators.

“Today is about being proactive and being empowered and really funneling all that energy and anger we have as young people into some productive change,” one of the student organizers, Lane Murdock of Connecticut, told Reuters.

Olivia Pfeil, a 16-year-old sophomore from a high school in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, held a sign bearing the names of mass shooting victims. “We’re expecting change or come next election cycle we will support politicians who are listening to the voices of the youth,” she said.

It was the second student walkout since the Feb. 14 massacre of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and the emergence of a national student movement to end gun violence and toughen restrictions on firearms sales.

Many of the demonstrators wore orange, a color that has come to represent the movement against gun violence. A 13-second silence was observed in honor of the 13 killed at Columbine.

At the Texas statehouse in Austin, about 1,000 students, many waving signs and chanting anti-NRA slogans, demanded stricter gun control measures.

“Because we can’t vote, this is the only way we can make our voices heard,” said Graeclyn Garza, a second-year student at McCallum High School in Austin, who waved a sign reading “Enough.”

Outside the White House, protesters sat in silence while they listened to the names of gun violence victims read aloud.

“It happened like 20 years ago,” said Ayanna Rhodes, 14, a student at Washington International School, referring to Columbine, “And we are still getting mass shootings in schools.”

Two gunman went on a shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Colorado in 1999, leaving 12 students and a teacher dead before killing themselves in a massacre that stunned the nation. But since then, school shootings have become commonplace.

Even as students prepared for their protest on Friday morning, news broke that a 17-year-old student had been wounded in a shooting at a high school near Ocala, Florida. A suspect was arrested soon afterward, police said.

The latest gun violence unfolded about 225 miles (360 km)northwest of the Parkland high school, where two months ago a former student killed 17 people in the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history.

Despite widespread revulsion over the school shootings, the issue of gun control remains sensitive in Colorado and across the country, where the Second Amendment of the Constitution guarantees the right to bear arms.

Dudley Brown, president of the Colorado-based National Association for Gun Rights, said the gun-control movement seeks to have the government take away constitutional rights.

“The main objective of these students is to ban firearms completely, and confiscate the firearms of law-abiding Americans,” Brown said. “We will oppose them at every step.”

In some conservative school districts, administrators told students they could face disciplinary steps if they walked out.

In suburban Dallas, a dozen students dressed in orange chanted “End gun violence!” as they huddled in a parking lot across the street from North Garland High School.

Freshman Victoria Fierro, 14, said school administrators blocked the doors when about 50 students tried to leave, so a small group exited through a side door.

“They told us we would get in trouble if we walk out, and we told them it was a peaceful protest, we’re not causing any damage,” Fierro said. “This is over a serious topic that people are pushing aside.”

The principal declined to answer questions from Reuters.

It was not immediately clear whether Friday’s turnout matched those of earlier protests. More than a month ago, tens of thousands of students from some 3,000 schools participated in the #ENOUGH National School Walkout to demand tighter gun control regulations.

On March 24, “March For Our Lives” rallies in cities across the United States were some of the biggest U.S. youth demonstrations in decades, with hundreds of thousands of young Americans and their supporters taking to the streets.

On the evening before the walk-outs, Colorado gun control activists rallied near Columbine High School.

Carlos Rodriguez, a 17-year-old junior from Marjory Stoneman, traveled to Columbine for the anniversary and said he found a sense of solidarity in the outpouring of support.

“That’s the only thing that’s keeping us Douglas students alive right now: the distraction of fighting for our rights and advocating for our lives,” Rodriguez told Reuters.

There was no walkout on Friday at Columbine, which has not held classes on April 20 since the massacre. Students were encouraged to take part in community service instead.</s>Students in the US will remember victims of gun violence and push for firearms control in another wave of school walkouts.

The latest protests are planned for today, the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting that left 13 people dead in Littleton, Colorado.

Organisers said more than 2,600 demonstrations were planned, from Maine to Hawaii.

Many students said they would wear orange and leave class at 10am before a moment of silence for victims of Columbine and other shootings.

It follows a surge of youth activism following the February 14 shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida.

Students near Washington plan to rally for gun control at the Capitol. At Columbine High School, classes are cancelled for a day of service.</s>Students from Florida to Chicago started streaming out of their schools Friday in the latest round of gun-control activism following the February shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida.

The protests were chosen to line up with the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting, which left 13 people dead in Littleton, Colorado. At 10 a.m. in each time zone, students at dozens of schools left class to take moments of silence honoring the victims at Columbine and other shootings.

From there, some students headed to rallies at their statehouses. Others stayed at school to discuss gun violence. Some are holding voting registration drives.

Hundreds of Washington-area students gathered at a park near the White House, taking 19 minutes of silence for each year that has passed since the Columbine massacre. In New York City, crowds of students gathered in Washington Square Park and lay down in a “die-in.”

Organizers say there will be walkouts in every state, with more than 2,700 registered on the event’s website . Citywide protests are expected to attract thousands in New York City and Austin, Texas. Police in Richmond, Virginia, say they expect at least 10,000 at the state Capitol.

Shortly before the walkouts, another school shooting in Florida left one student injured. Authorities say one student shot another in the ankle at Forest High School in Ocala. A suspect was taken into custody.

At Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a gunman killed 17 on Feb. 14, student David Hogg said the latest shooting underscored the urgency of the protests.

“We have to stop this. We’re not going to be able to stop this unless we continue to make our voices heard, though, when our elected officials won’t,” Hogg said on a video posted to social media. “We have to get out there and make our voices heard, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans.”

Hogg was among about 50 students who walked out of Stoneman Douglas after administrators threatened protesters with unexcused absences.

Craig Smith and Terry McGary, both 17-year-old juniors, said they walked out because they want to show respect for the Columbine victims.

“It was a guilt trip to make us not walk out,” McGary said about the threat.

Smith said gun violence can “no longer be swept under the covers.”

“This is the only way to bring attention to the issue,” he said.

The walkouts are the latest in a wave of youth activism that has emerged after the Parkland massacre.

Tens of thousands of students left class March 14 to protest gun violence in what historians called the largest youth protest movement since at least the Vietnam War. Days later, hundreds of thousands of teens and their backers rallied across the U.S. calling for tougher laws on guns and ammunition.

Plans for Friday’s walkout began only hours after the Parkland shooting, when a Connecticut teen started an online petition calling for protests on the anniversary of Columbine. Sophomore Lane Murdock then gathered a few other students at Ridgefield High School to orchestrate the national protest.

They also have received help from Indivisible, a left-leaning nonprofit based in Washington that helps boost grassroots activism. The group says it was formed after the 2016 election to oppose the policies promoted by President Donald Trump.

“We’re walking out to remember every single young person who has been killed by American gun violence,” Murdock said in a statement Thursday. “We’re walking out to talk about the real problems our country is facing, and the solutions that our leaders are too scared to dream up.”

Administrators at many schools tacitly allowed the walkouts in March, opting not to punish participants. But some now say the leniency has expired.

At a town hall Monday, the chancellor of New York City’s education department urged students not to walk out on Friday.

“You don’t need to be out of school all day to make your voices known,” Chancellor Richard Carranza told students at Brooklyn Technical High School. “You’ve already made your voices known. So I’m going to ask you to stay in school.”

Some schools in Houston and elsewhere will give students time to share their views but have warned them not to leave campus or return to class late. Some others are holding alternative events after school. Many have simply said students are expected to stay in class throughout the day.

In Littleton, some survivors of the Parkland shooting joined Columbine students for a vigil and rally Thursday evening. But there will be no walkout at Columbine, which has long canceled classes on the anniversary of the shooting. Instead, students will be called to participate in a day of service.

Principal Scott Christy said in a letter to other schools in his district that April “has long been a time to respectfully remember our loss, and also support efforts to make our communities a better place.”</s>Today marked another National School Walkout to protest school gun violence — this one coincided with the anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting in 1999.

The current wave of activism among students around gun violence was spurred by the Parkland, Florida, school shooting earlier this year.

Listen in the player above to hear how some Louisville Collegiate students spent the day and how they feel about school security.</s>Hundreds of students in the D.C. area and thousands more across the country plan to walk out of their classes Friday to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the Columbine school shooting.

Local students have chosen to organize a school walkout to call for tighter regulations on gun ownership, but school officials have issued mixed policies on it — the second student walkout for gun control in as many months.

Fairfax County schools issued a guidance letter to principals stating that staff could not restrict students’ right to freedom of speech, but those who leave school grounds “may be subject to discipline.” The statement said students would be permitted to leave with a signed note from their parents.

D.C. Public Schools also will allow parents to sign their children out of class, but principals warned in a letter to parents that “any student who leaves class will receive an unexcused absence for any periods they miss.”

Arlington County Public Schools Superintendent Patrick K. Murphy also warned parents in a letter in March that students who leave school Friday will be marked with “an unexcused absence unless parents provide written permission.”

However, Washington Leadership Academy — a D.C. charter school — is using the walkout as a field trip for its ninth-graders, who have been studying social movements like Black Lives Matter and the civil rights movement.

“Our kids have been looking at this in a very two-dimensional context, reading articles and watching videos,” Jaishri Shankar, a ninth-grade teacher, told The Washington Times. “We had kids asking, saying, ‘We would love to participate in this.’”

Academy students will gather at school in the morning to take attendance, and the ninth- and 10th-graders will be able to leave together. Ms. Shankar stressed that participation is optional, but the school felt a duty to help student organizers make the trip a possibility.

“If we really want to walk the walk for building students to be ready to lives of public leadership, I think that starts at school,” the teacher said.

Students nationwide walked out of schools on March 14 to mark the one-month anniversary of the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School massacre in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 students and adults were gunned down. The National School Walkout featured rallies calling for more and stricter gun control.

The walkout to mark the 19th anniversary of the Columbine shooting, however, won’t include student protests at the Colorado school that changed how the nation viewed shootings.

Just as it has done every year since the April 20, 1999, shooting killed 12 students and a teacher, Columbine High School will be closed.
• This article is based in part on wire service reports.</s>LITTLETON, COLORADO (Reuters) - Colorado teenagers will kick off a voter registration rally on Thursday ahead of the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre on Friday, when students across the United States plan to walk out of class to protest gun violence.

The Vote for Our Lives event in the Denver suburb of Littleton, home to Columbine High School, where 13 people were gunned down in 1999, will feature survivors of shootings -including the Feb. 14 massacre in Parkland, Florida - and other speakers, organizers say.

Student walk-outs have become part of an ongoing, youth-led movement to demand stricter gun control laws that emerged immediately after the attack by a gunman who slaughtered 17 people at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Friday's National School Walkout, which organizers say has drawn support from more than 2,600 schools and institutions, has three goals: to hold elected officials accountable, promote solutions to gun violence, and promote student participation in the political system, the organizers have said.

The protest is set to begin at 10 a.m. local time across U.S. time zones. Organizers have asked students not only to wear orange, the official color against gun violence, but also to observe a 13-second silence to honor those killed at Columbine.

The latest national rally will come more than a month after tens of thousands of U.S. students from more than 3,000 schools participated in the #ENOUGH National School Walkout to demand that policy makers seek tighter gun control regulations.

Activists have also lobbied state and federal lawmakers and even met with President Donald Trump to call for new restrictions on gun ownership, a right protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

On April 20, 1999, two teenagers rampaged through Columbine High School, fatally shooting 12 students and a teacher and wounding more than 20 others before killing themselves.</s>Students demanding tougher gun laws walked out of classes across the United States on Friday, the 19th anniversary of the shooting at Columbine High School which left 13 people dead.

As thousands of teenagers held rallies from coast to coast, a shooting at a high school in Ocala, Florida, left one student wounded.

The Ocala Star Banner newspaper said a 19-year-old former student at Forest High School fired a blast from a shotgun into a locked classroom door, wounding a 17-year-old student in the ankle.

The Marion County Sheriff's Office said the suspect, who was not identified, was quickly arrested.

Around the country, students marked the anniversary of the April 20, 1999 shooting at Columbine in Colorado, a massacre seen as the harbinger of an era of school violence.

"I feel like things have gotten worse these last few years," said Emma Corcoran, a 15-year-old from Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Maryland, at a rally in Washington. "Change needs to happen."

The protests have been galvanized by students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 14 teens and three adult staff members were shot dead on February 14 by a troubled former classmate armed with an AR-15-style automatic weapon.

The Parkland students have spearheaded a grassroots campaign for gun control which included another school walkout on March 14 and nationwide rallies by hundreds of thousands of Americans on March 24.

"So proud of the #NationalSchoolWalkout and all of the students around the country who are standing up for positive change and demanding what we deserve," tweeted Cameron Kasky, a Parkland student leader.
On the anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre, thousands of students across the United States walk out of school to protest against school shootings.