Gainesville students marched for gun reform

For 17 minutes, about 100 Eastside High School students, arms linked, stood silent in their school courtyard Wednesday morning. Catherine Sarosi, 18, had never heard her classmates so quiet.

“We felt the gravity of what had happened, and we wanted to respect the people that lost their lives,” Sarosi said.

Sarosi and her classmates were among thousands of students who marched and walked-out of their schools across the country to protest gun violence and demand gun reform. Students left their classrooms for 17 minutes, one minute for each victim of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, according to The New York Times. Alachua County School Board member Robert Hyatt said students who participated in Wednesday’s protests would not face punishment.

The students walked out of classes at about 10 a.m. and met in the courtyard. Some brought signs, including one that listed anti-gun laws, Sarosi said.

After the 17 minutes of silence, Eastside student Ari Bechtel told his classmates to take a stand and get involved. After Bechtel spoke, students went back to class — but not to stay. At about noon, before lunch period, students marched out of classes again, this time more informally, said Bailey McIntyre, a 17-year-old high school senior.

McIntyre said the second walkout was an opportunity for students to talk about change they want to see happen.

“I'm contacting legislators,” McIntyre said on how she plans on making a change.

On the other side of the city, about 100 other protesters marched from Buchholz High School to Congressman Ted Yoho’s office, located at 5000 NW 27th Court, where they honored the victims of the Parkland shooting and advocated for stricter gun regulations. Women’s March for Gainesville and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America’s Gainesville chapter co-sponsored the event.

Sandy Parker, a volunteer with Indivisible Gainesville, started the rally in front of Yoho’s office by saying the name and age of each Parkland shooting victim while one white rose for each was placed in front of a marquis outside the office. A black ribbon was tied to a card with the victim’s name to each flower.

“No more names. No more victims,” protesters chanted after the last flower was placed.

After the chants, students took the megaphone to share their fears.

Middle School seventh-grader Resli Ward told the crowd said before Parkland, shootings always seemed “so far away.” But now the Westwood Middle School seventh-grader and her friends talk all the time about the possibility of someone showing up to their classroom with a gun.

“Students should be worried about their next test, not if they’re going to die today,” she said.

When the 11:15 a.m. march from Buchholz High School began, Lorelei Esser’s grandnephew ran ahead of her.

Four-year-old Gabriel jumped up and down the sidewalk with his blue and yellow sign that read “Children’s Lives Matter.”

Esser, 68, held her own sign high above her head, which read, “Stand Up For Children Not Guns.” She said she struggles with how to present the dangers of guns to her grandnephew.

She doesn’t want to frighten him. But then she thinks of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, where children only two to three years older than Gabriel were killed.

“Age is indiscriminate, it doesn’t matter whether you’re his age or my age,” she said. “These shootings affect all of us.”

Yoho talked with about a handful of students from the march over Skype from his Washington D.C. office at 12:30 p.m. about gun reform. His office scheduled the meeting Monday when the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office told Yoho’s aids of the Wednesday protest, said Yoho constituent advocate Jessica Norfleet.

For nearly an hour, Yoho and the students went back and forth. At one point Yoho suggested the students try shooting a gun.

“I find it interesting that you want to take away rights from people that you’ve never experienced,” Yoho said. “Go out to a sporting play or one of the gun ranges and have an instruction on how to use a gun, and then come back and let’s have this conversation then.”

Resli, one of the students at the meeting, responded that she was 13.

Yoho said he would be open to doing an town hall-style talk with high school students at a local school the next time he’s in town.

After the Skype chat, 18-year-old GHS senior Paige Wearrien said she was disappointed Yoho focused so much of the conversation on the Founding Fathers and the Second Amendment when it’s current-day students who are at risk.

“I do appreciate the fact that he took the time out to listen to the voices that really matter, because we are the ones who are affected,” Wearrien said. “But I do feel he could have been more open-minded.”

Staff writer Jessica Giles contributed to this report.

Contact David Hoffman at dhoffman@alligator.org. Follow him on Twitter at @hoffdavid123. 

Five students, including one middle schooler, Skyped with Congressman Ted Yoho, who was in his Washington D.C. office Wednesday during the nationwide Walkout Wednesday protest.