Indianapolis high school students from across the city walked out of their schools on Friday, September 5th, and traveled to the Indiana State House in a coordinated action to protest gun violence, demand safer schools, call for legislative action for stricter gun laws, and exercise their civic right to assemble and be heard. 
Hundreds of teenagers from at least four Indianapolis high schools, Herron, Shortridge, North Central, and Brebeuf, gathered on the State House steps, carrying protest signs and chanting “Enough is Enough” and “We Want Change.” Many of the students had taken the Red Line bus downtown from their schools, some carrying their heavy school backpacks (many of them clear, per their school’s gun safety rules).
The rally was part of a nationwide action organized by Students Demand Action, a national grass roots movement of student activists, organized in a matter of days in response to the August 27th shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, MN.
Locally, the walk out and rally was organized by Holden Pasley, a Herron High School Senior and the president of Herron’s chapter of Students Demand Change. Pasley coordinated with student leaders and activists at other schools to stage the walk outs, and invited other gun law reform political action groups (Moms Demand Action and Hoosiers Against Gun Violence) and gun reform lawmakers to attend and share their messages. Indiana State Senators Andrea Hunley (D- District 46), La Keisha Jackson (D- District 34), and Fady Quaddoura (D- District 30) addressed the crowd of students, sharing stories of their thwarted attempts to bring sensible gun reform legislation to the State House floor and encouraging the students to use their voices to bring about change.
“As legislators in this building, we could make sure that people need a permit to carry a gun. We could make sure that people have to register their guns, and all of their gun sales. We could ban the sale of assault weapons. We could ban that. But it is going to take you all standing up, you all coming out, you all showing up, you voting, you calling upon us as lawmakers to make these changes,” said Hunley. “These are choices that lawmakers are making to put guns over kids. So let’s let them know loudly today that we expect them to put kids over guns.”
The national Students Demand Action website reports that more than 250 schools across the country participated in this protest.
