PROTEST FOR PERRY 06 NEWS
JAN. 19, 2024
S
tudents across Iowa returned to school after winter break, welcoming the new year and ready to learn. However, the students of Perry High School were met with a seventeen-year-old with two guns in each hand. A sixth grader attending Perry, eleven-year-old Ahmir Jolliff, lost his life to another case of gun violence in America. In the past five years, there have been more than 1,200 cases of school shootings in the country. Within that time, Iowa alone had ten incidents. School shootings are happening more frequently, and the total number of victims wounded and killed is growing. Enraged by Perry’s tragedy and school shootings around the nation, Iowa students of all ages walked out of class and came together in Des Moines, Iowa City and other areas in the state to protest for stricter gun laws in Iowa on Jan. 8. Organizations such as March For Our Lives and colleges such as Drake University led students with chants that filled the Iowa capitol in the presence of Iowa legislators. Frustrated students from City High, West High and other schools gathered at the Old Capitol in downtown Iowa City to share their experiences with gun violence, demanding change. BY GIANNA LIU PHOTOS BY GIANNA LIU DESIGN BY ANNA SONG
Many students spoke about their experiences with school shootings and their fears at school at the Jan. 8 walkout. (right)
Students from all across the Iowa City area walked out of their classrooms to protest for stricter gun control. The Perry school shooting sparked a movement of hundreds of students in Iowa to walk out and demand change in the state legislation.
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