Students across the nation Wednesday staged a mass walkout to protest gun violence — exactly one month after the massacre at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Leading the charge were surviving students from the Parkland school, where confessed shooter Nikolas Cruz allegedly opened fire with an AR-15 rifle, killing 17 people.
Two walkouts were scheduled there, with school officials and student leaders encouraging students to remain on campus and walk the football field with teachers out of safety concerns, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“The mood, much like the weather this morning, is cold but it’s hard and to the point,” survivor David Hogg, who has been at the forefront of gun control advocacy in the wake of the deadly shooting, said on the “Today” show. “We know that we’ve had this change, we know that we’ve seen the suffering and loss but now, instead of closing up like many other communities before us, we must stand up, walk out and speak up against these acts of violence.”
Nearly 3,000 coordinated walkouts — at elementary schools, high schools and universities — began at 10 a.m. in local time zones and were to last 17 minutes to honor the 17 killed, according to Empower, the youth branch of the Women’s March that is behind the walkouts.
“Our elected officials must do more than tweet thoughts and prayers in response to this violence,” the group said on its website.
Empower is calling on legislators to ban assault weapons and order mandatory background checks for gun sales.
Dozens of New York City schools also participated in the event.
Hundreds of students at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan walked out — and continued their journey to City Hall, chanting “Hey, hey, NRA, how many kids did you kill today?”
“When the students at Parkland started walking out, I knew we had a voice,” said sophomore Grace Goldstein, 16, co-president of Sty Says Enough.
She addressed around 1,000 students who filled half a baseball stadium, yelling through a megaphone.
“We are not trying to trample the Second Amendment,” said 16-year-old sophomore co-president Morgan Hesse.
Mayor Bill de Blasio was with students at Edward Murrow High School in Midwood, Brooklyn, and praised them for taking a stand.
“There has never been a more powerful movement than what the students of Brooklyn and New York City and this nation have done in these last few weeks,” he said to applause.
“You are making so clear to this whole country that you are sick of the violence, you’re sick of the madness, you’re sick of the slaughter and you won’t stand for it.”
Kids poured out from the school at the stroke of 10 a.m., holding up homemade signs reading “Am I Next,” “Stop the Madness” and “I wanna graduate!”
“We’re here shoulder to shoulder and hand in hand,” said senior Schon Gonzalez, 18. “We want change. We want more regulation of gun laws, we want more security checks.”
Senior Jonah Levinowitz, 18, added, “I remember when I was in middle school during Sandy Hook and it just destroyed me. Now is the time. It’s time to end all of this, it’s ridiculous.”
Chanting “We want change” and “Save our kids,” the crowd slowly filed back into class after roughly 20 minutes.
De Blasio said students who honor the 17-minute limit and return to class “will be respected.”
A mass March for Our Lives protest against gun violence and mass shootings is scheduled March 24 in Washington and other cities.