For high school and college students, weekends are typically a time to decompress, to cut loose a bit from the onslaught of obligation that is the school week. Some people play sports, some play video games.
But, in 2018, after a barrage of mass shootings, including the tragedy that claimed 17 lives at Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14, more students are spending their off-time fighting for their safety in the form of walkouts, rallies and protests that call for expanded gun reform.
On March 24, hundreds of thousands flocked to Washington, DC for the “March for Our Lives” to call Congress to action, and countless other students came out to protest around the nation at the 800-some other rallies that were planned for that day.
Although North Central College’s campus lies over 1,300 miles from Parkland, Florida, no school in America is immune to the shooting’s impact. Just two weeks after Stoneman Douglas, a group of NCC students gathered in New Hall to participate in an active shooter response training presentation.
But the action in Naperville has not just been reactive. Recently, North Central students along with students from local high schools organized a rally to “demand action on gun violence,” where members of the community came out to hear students give speeches, hold signs and, most importantly, sign petitions to send to their elected officials in regard to specific gun-related legislation.
“On the high school end, it wasn’t necessarily about specific legislation for them, it was more about that emotional, I want to feel safe in school,” said Students for Social Innovation member and College Democrats president Andrea Heiden, ’19.
“On our end, on the college end, it’s more about evidence-based policy. We want to make sure if there is policy enacted it comes from a place of science and facts,” she said.
For SSI president Reese Richardson, ’19, a double major in physics and applied-mathematics, advocating for gun reform policy that is grounded in hard evidence makes it difficult to ignore, even when, in their case, it’s presented by young people. “Traditionally young has been almost synonymous with uneducated, inexperienced and unworthy of having a belief or having an opinion,” said Richardson.
But in 2018, when new voters are coming to the polls for the first time equipped with access to more information than anyone before them, it’s very possible for the youth to be as informed on the issues as anyone.
In fact, while it was SSI’s gun rally that got them their first meeting with state Rep. Grant Wehrli (R), it was their commitment to evidence-based policy that made him take the students seriously. By presenting the Republican representative with facts and research in regard to the now recently-vetoed Gun Dealer Licensing Act, “we may not have been able to sway his vote, but we certainly gained his attention,” said Richardson.
With Richardson at the helm, SSI has been trying to teach students how to take action on the social change they crave whether it be gathering petitions or attending marches and protests.
Students like Heiden have found these group events to be particularly empowering. “It’s a way to talk about issues and feel united,” she said, “and feel like you’re not alone.”
However, one of the club’s tougher tasks has been at home on campus, trying to continue the conversation on heated topics like gun control at North Central. The group hosts weekly meetings in part as an open forum for discussion of diverse ideas and opinions on social issues. “Nobody wants to be labeled as x,” Heiden said. “Maybe we have differences of opinion, but we can talk about why that is or why you feel the way you do. I think students feel scared sometimes.” Put plainly, Richardson said: “Yeah, it’s pretty difficult, but I think that’s the point.”
The recent tragedies have yet to make national policy any easier, and congressional inaction will likely only ramp up the conversation; especially when bills proposing tightening the background check system fizzled out weeks after the Feb. 14 shooting, despite a Quinnipiac poll showing 97 percent support among Americans.
The gun debate is not going away anytime soon; and, it appears, neither are the students leading the charge, including many from Parkland who have stepped onto the national stage since 17 of their friends were killed only a few months ago. And in the past months, with the National School Walkout events all over the country on April 20, including 10 that were scheduled in the Chicagoland area. Their message will only grow louder.
