Nashville students walk out in call for gun reform

Nashville-area school students have planned to walk out of their classes on Monday to call for gun reform in the U.S. in the wake of the shooting at a local private elementary school. 

Nashville, Tenn., ABC affiliate WKRN, a Nexstar-owned station, reported that the event is being led by March For Our Lives (MFOL) organization. MFOL was launched in 2018 in response to the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where 17 students and teachers were killed. 

The scheduled walkout will happen at 10:13 a.m., the same time authorities said the gunman entered The Covenant School and opened fire, killing three students and three adults. 

The 28-year-old shooter was also killed by police after authorities rushed to the scene within 14 minutes of the first 911 call, WKRN reported. 

After the walkout, students along with parents and other supporters will gather at the Tennessee capital at 10:45 a.m. 

Brynn Jones and Ezri Tyler, two Vanderbilt University students who organized Monday’s event, told WKRN that their work with MFOL includes interviewing people impacted by school shootings, adding that now they have to interview their neighbors as part of their jobs. 

“It hits closer and closer, the longer and longer that you’re, you know, hearing these stories just being like that it’s the same story over and over again,” Jones told WKRN. “But then hearing it on Monday that it was in Tennessee, it was in Nashville, 20 minutes from where I grew up, 20 minutes from where I go to school, hit incredibly close to home and felt personal in a way that it usually doesn’t.”

Tyler said that the purpose of Monday’s rally is to show that her community is tired and is demanding change from her state’s legislature on gun reform. 

“The message overall is we know that right now, Tennessee is engaging in this culture war, where they’re harming our communities by banning drag, by banning books, banning gender affirming care,” Tyler told WKRN. “But if they actually cared about protecting kids, as they claimed, they would address what kills every single day, which is guns.”

An March For Our Lives spokesperson estimated 7,000 people were at the Capitol as of Monday afternoon, including students from Belmont University, Tennessee State University, and local high schools.

The Nashville shooting has once again spurred efforts among Democrats to pass federal gun control legislation, while Republicans have largely resisted those proposals.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies (D-N.Y.) last week pressed House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to hold a vote on “common sense gun safety legislation.”

“The American people, regardless of political affiliation, overwhelmingly support common sense gun safety measures,” Jeffries wrote in a letter to McCarthy. “The House should do likewise.”

Updated: 4:28 p.m.