SandyMaloneOverland Park, KS – More than 100 students at Blue Valley Southwest and thousands more across the nation walked out of class Wednesday in support of the Second Amendment.
The nationwide walkout started at 10 a.m. on May 2, WDAF reported.
The walkout, which lasted for 16 minutes, was intended to counter the message sent by students advocating gun control during the previous walkout.
The national event, called “Stand for the Second,” was started by a New Mexico high school student named Will Riley, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.
“I’m watching the news and I see they’re saying, ‘Well we have to do something about this. We have to enact some sort of gun control legislation because this is what the kids are asking for.’ And I’m thinking, ‘I’m not asking for that,'” Riley told USA Today. “I look at my friends and I think ‘They’re not asking for that.’”
For the most part, school administrators seemed to acknowledge that students who disagreed with the pro-gun control message of the first walkout needed an opportunity to have their voices heard.
“If there are students that are planning to participate, they should work with the administration to make sure there aren’t disruptions to their campus,” Spokesman Chris Petley, who represented the schools in Leon County, Florida, told the Tallahassee Democrat.
Eighteen-year-old Zachary Bell was leading the Stand for the Second walkout at Grand Ledge High School in Michigan.
“It is a vital part of our Bill of Rights,” Bell told USA Today. “I believe it’s important. Without it we wouldn’t be the country that we are today.”
Grand Ledge Public Schools Superintendent Brian Metcalf said his school district’s officials support Bell’s walkout the same way they had supported the students who participated in the March walkout, according to USA Today.
“Students have a First Amendment right to express their views,” Metcalf said Tuesday. “We want them to develop their own voice. I think you’ve got to give them some leeway for expressing those thoughts.”