Indiana high school students protested with signs saying “Protect Kids, Not Guns” as part of the national March for Our Lives event to press for gun control in South Bend, Goshen and several other communities in Indiana and Michigan.
Saturday’s marches come in the wake of a shooting that left 17 dead at a Florida high school last month. In Indianapolis, thousands of students and their supporters rallied at the Indiana Statehouse. One speaker, DeAndra Yates, talked about her son being paralyzed after he was struck with a stray bullet when he was 13.
Students at the statehouse held signs saying “Am I Next?” In Bloomington, protesters gathered outside the Monroe County Courthouse.
Students from across southeastern Michigan led the way along the Detroit River and through downtown streets Saturday. They held signs that said, “Books Not Bullets” and “Am I Next?”
Another sign said that only a math test should scare kids — not the possibility of violence. A Detroit police boat on the river honked in support.
Aaron Johnson, a 21-year-old at the College for Creative Studies, carved a sign that told gun owners “to find a new hobby.” He believes the mass shooting in Florida might be the “tipping point” for gun control.
Fifty-eight-year-old Brian Koehler of St. Clair Shores says he’s a gun owner who wants common sense changes. He says there should be background checks on every gun purchase or transfer in the U.S.
Koehler says there’s no reason for someone to be able to fire 30 rounds from a magazine unless they’re in the military.
The protesters were among hundreds of thousands who rallied in the nation’s capital and cities across America in one of the biggest youth protests since the Vietnam era.
