A small group of mostly high school students gathered in front of the White House on Friday as part of the National School Walkout, an anti-gun protest launched by a Connecticut teen following the shooting deaths of 17 people at a Florida high school in February.
From Breitbart:
Following a moment of silence plus 13 seconds to honor the 13 people shot and killed at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, the group walked to the Capitol where speakers lashed out at Republicans and the National Rifle Association (NRA).
The organizers from schools in the D.C., Virginia, and Maryland region collected letters demanding gun control from protesters addressed to legislators and registered voters via text.
But like the March for Our Lives protest last month and the first National School Walkout on March 14, the anti-gun walkout protest is being pushed and funded by Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety, which spawned the Students Demand Action group that participated on Friday.
Ian Berlin, 17, a student at a D.C. high school who told Breitbart News he organized the local protest, spoke from a small stage set up on the West Lawn of the Capitol.
Berlin said there are rules and regulations on the First Amendment, citing the permits the group needed to put on the protest.
“And so too must we regulate the Second Amendment,” Berlin said. “Just as the freedoms of the First Amendment are subject to rules and regulation so too must be those protected under the Second.”
“No amendment is absolute,” Berlin said. “Your right to a gun does not supersede my right to graduate high school.”
The protesters also embraced the LGBT community and its link to “gun violence,” including suicide by a gunshot wound.
