Following East HS shooting, students return to state Capitol in protest

DENVER — High school students once again rallied at the Colorado State Capitol Thursday with a familiar demand for the state’s lawmakers: do something about gun violence.

Following the shooting at East High School Wednesday in which a student shot and injured two administrators — the student later died in Park County, Colorado — students organized at the Capitol with signs that read “Books Not Bullets,” “No More Silence, Stop the Violence” and “We Are Not Safe.”

Read more about the shooting here.

One of the students at the Capitol Thursday was Beckett Nelson-Garner, member of the East High School branch of Students Demand Action, a nationwide network of student activists working to end gun violence.

“It’s definitely a problem that we even have to be here,” Nelson-Garner said. “We went on spring break early for this and honestly, we should be on spring break right now, but we’re not. We’re here at the Capitol working towards the goal that hopefully we won’t have to be threatened in our learning environments.”

Asked what specific legislation he wanted implemented to address gun violence, Nelson-Garner pointed to three bills: a bill to ban assault weapon sales; a bill that would expand the state’s red flag laws; and a bill that would limit gun sales to people 21 and older.

“We have so many ways to fix this problem that is gun violence and we have so many ways to stop people from dying in our school,” Nelson-Garner said. “The main thing to prevent gun violence is laws, right?”

Kyle Cooke is the digital media manager at Rocky Mountain PBS. You can reach him at kylecooke@rmpbs.org.

William Peterson is a senior photojournalist at Rocky Mountain PBS. You can reach him at williampeterson@rmpbs.org.