On average, 120 Americans are killed by guns every single day, according to Everytown, the larger organization that Students Demand Action is part of. This year, Parkway North has a chapter of Students Demand Action for the first time.
Students Demand Action is a nationwide group dedicated to ending gun violence. There are over 700 chapters, or groups, across the country in colleges, high schools, and communities. Students Demand Action gives young people a chance to fight for change.
“This is an issue that I’ve cared about for a really, really long time,” said sponsor Wendy Surinsky, who arranged for a group to be started at North. “Not this year, but the previous year it seemed like it was a good time to start a chapter here.”
Students Demand Action groups across the country do things like help peers register to vote, educate others and spreading awareness, meet with elected officials, and more to work towards ending gun violence
“Gun violence is a very widespread issue that our generation especially has dealt with our whole lives,” said freshman Amelia Regent, who is also the group leader. “I think that’s something that everyone can agree needs to be addressed.”
In 2022, there were around 305 school shooting incidents, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database. The third deadliest school shooting in the United States also occurred in 2022 in Uvalde, Texas.
“I know how difficult it is for students, how scary it is for students, to be worrying about school shootings,” said Surinsky. “It just seemed really important to respond to that and to provide a way for students to have some force of empowerment to address this issue, even though it’s not students’ responsibility to do that. It’s really the adults’ responsibility.”
So far, the group has had two meetings, both with fairly low attendance. Despite this, the group has formed a close community. “We’re really connected and we have fun at meetings,” Regent said.
At their last meeting on Oct. 30, the students sent out texts to ask people to petition to close the gun show loophole, as it’s commonly called. The gun show loophole refers to how unlicensed gun sellers, such as those found at gun shows, don’t require background checks to sell guns to people. This makes it easy for people who shouldn’t be allowed to have guns to obtain them.
The next meeting will be on Nov. 6 at 2:35 p.m. in room 2513 in the English department.
