Thousands of Nashville students walk out and rally a week after school shooting
Thousands of Tennessee students walked out of classes Monday to march on the state Capitol exactly a week after six people — including three young kids — were murdered in the Nashville school shooting.
The walkout started at 10:13 a.m., the same time last Monday that transgender shooter Audrey Hale, 28, blasted her way into the Covenant School and gunned down six people in a 14-minute bloodbath.
Soon, a constant stream of students were seen marching on the Tennessee Capitol in Music City, with WKRN estimating up to 3,000 swarming the steps.
Many chanted “We will not be silenced — stop gun violence,” while others shouted, “This is what democracy looks like!”
Dozens of students also entered the Cordell Hull State Office Building, staging a sit-in outside the office of the state house speaker, banging on the floor while shouting that “kids are dying,” according to The Tennessean.
At least one lawmaker, state Sen. Charlane Oliver, supported the protests, holding up her own sign reading: “Protect kids not guns.” She later hailed the event as “democracy in action.”
Some of the students were also able to be there thanks to teachers scrapping classes to join them at the event.
Vanderbilt University professor Eric Dyson told the crowds that he had suspended his divinity school class to talk about justice.
“Guns are weapons of mass destruction, especially AR-15s, which needs to be banned,” he said, according to the local outlet.
“Don’t ban books. Ban the idiotic, white supremacist, right-wing ignorance,” he said, getting cheers for blaming toxic masculinity and transphobia for the transgender shooter’s deadly spree.
Metro Nashville Public School board member Abigail Tyler asked students to raise their hands if they remember a time before lockdown drills, with only a few being raised, The Tennessean also said.
“I am so sorry … but we’re here to remind them that you are worth protecting,” the former teacher said, encouraging those there to vote for candidates backing “common-sense gun laws.”
The rally was the latest organized by March for Our Lives, the student-led group started by survivors of the 2018 Parkland shooting in Florida.
“It’s not drag queens, it’s not books, it’s not Black history, it’s not trans rights — GUNS are KILLING KIDS,” the group wrote in one push for support for the walkout.
“We CANNOT keep living like this; We CANNOT keep dying like this.”
During the rally, the group said it was “determined to be the LAST ‘lockdown generation.’
“We will not keep burying our classmates,” the group said.
As well as those taking to the streets in Nashville, “there are millions across the country demanding change with them,” March for Our Lives tweeted. “Young people are a force and we get s–t done.”
Other local schools held events in their buildings to mark the slaying of three staffers and three 9-year-old students before cops shot Hale dead.
While the events were still happening, officials revealed that Hale had fired 152 rounds from two assault rifles and a pistol she carried during the attack.
Even though Hale “documented, in journals, her planning over a period of months to commit mass murder,” the “motive for Hale’s actions has not been established,” investigators said.
Still, “It is known that Hale considered the actions of other mass murderers,” the update said, without elaborating on specific inspiration the shooter drew.
