Clark County students call for tighter gun laws

The day before hundreds of Clark County residents were expected to march against gun violence, 17-year-old Danielle Asbury wondered if she was safe when her school went into lockdown.

At the time, the Evergreen High School senior had no idea what prompted the response. It later turned out to be a bomb scare at a nearby school. No one was hurt and the threat was unfounded. But those few minutes reminded Asbury why, in less than 24 hours, she would be taking to the streets in Vancouver in support of safer schools.

“During that time, I reflected on the whole (March for Our Lives) movement and what it means to be a part of it. It really inspired me, because I realize it doesn’t just affect other people; it could affect me one day,” she said.

Asbury joined other students in organizing Saturday’s March for Our Lives in Vancouver, the local event for Clark County students and community members to march in solidarity with the victims of last month’s school shooting that left 17 people dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

Participants marched in favor of stricter gun control, including banning sales of assault-style weapons such as the AR-15 and high capacity magazines, and expanding background checks for all gun buyers. They joined hundreds of thousands of people around the world who demonstrated in protests underscoring the fear some children feel in school while setting the stage for political action.

Locally, about 1,000 marched from Hough Elementary School and the O.O. Howard House — the location of Republican U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler’s office — and converged for a rally in Esther Short Park.

Both crowds wrapped around the block as they made their way onto Columbia Street and Evergreen Boulevard.

Some passers-by in cars honked and waved as the crowds made their slow progression along the sidewalk, eventually joining with other demonstrators downtown.

“Hey hey! Ho ho! The NRA has got to go!” they shouted at times, as well as, “Not one more! Not one more!”

In the park, student speakers read poetry and personal essays, sharing their concerns about ongoing gun violence in schools while urging the crowd to vote in favor of stricter gun regulations and mental health reform.

Jamie Norris, a Vancouver School of Arts and Academics senior and one of the student speakers, recalled how it felt to watch the news of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn. She described the fear she felt for herself and her younger sister in the aftermath.

“It was an indescribable mix of anger and powerlessness and sorrow,” she said. “I was only a child myself. I could do nothing but watch as the tragedy unfolded in real time.”

She encouraged her peers to continue to advocate for safe schools, telling them that, despite their age, their voices matter.

“We’ve been told that we are too young to have a seat at the table. We’ve been told that we have no power, and that is not true. Not in the slightest,” she said.

Another student organizer, 17-year-old Aubree Radtke, a junior at Vancouver School of Arts and Academics, said after the rally that she held back tears as she listened to her peers speak.

“I really want to empower students and people my age to make a change, and reach out to legislators until we get it,” she said. “The future is now, and the change is here.”

Marching from the O.O. Howard House, 18-year-old Berry Robertson — who uses gender-neutral pronouns — said they almost didn’t come to the rally, out of fear.

“I decided to fight against my fear. I’m passionate about this. I want to be part of the revolution; my generation is fighting to defend our lives. And I want to help support people and advocate for our rights,” Robertson said, adding, “This shouldn’t even be an issue.”

Robertson was home-schooled and didn’t have to worry about gun violence but said many of their friends attend traditional schools.

“It’s an issue that reaches and touches everybody in the community,” Robertson said.

It wasn’t just teenagers and children who demonstrated. Teachers, parents and other concerned community members joined the crowd. Darlene Carr was an older participant in the demonstrations, a point she made clear with her sign.

“Old supports young,” it read. “Stop gun violence now! Support the actions of our future, not the ignorance of the past.”

Watching the rally, Carr recalled the student protests of the 1960s and 1970s, a time when students marched against the Vietnam War, and in favor of civil rights, women’s rights and gay rights.

“I’m just so proud of what the youth of today are doing,” she said.

Cynthia Beaty and her husband, Jeremiah Landels, and their two children, Riley, 7, and Rowdy, 4, also attended.

Beaty called recent school shootings “deeply upsetting,” as a mother, adding it’s difficult to tell her children they’ll be safe at school every day, because she doesn’t know they will be.

“There aren’t enough colorful metaphors” to describe the stress, she said.

When she and her children were brainstorming signs, she asked them what they wanted to be when they grow up.

That’s when Rowdy responded with the line his sign bore: “I want to be alive when I grow up.”

“It crushed me, but it was very accurate,” Beaty said.

Riley recalled a recent lockdown drill in her class at Woodland Intermediate School. She thought, briefly, there was someone with a firearm on campus and was distraught.

“I literally freaked out,” she said. “I was crying ‘Mommy, mommy, mommy.'”

Despite some rumblings on social media of an organized counterprotest, only a handful of demonstrators attended in opposition to the March for Our Lives.

John Bauer, an 18-year-old Ridgefield High School senior, was among them.

Bauer, who spoke to The Columbian in a phone interview after the march, said he supports the idea of arming trained teachers and having more armed guards in school to prevent shootings. Banning weapons won’t prevent violence, he said; it’s just creating more laws that can be broken.

He also said that owning a firearm is a constitutionally-protected right.

“I think they’re going in the wrong direction with it,” he said of the March for Our Lives movement.

Despite the opposition, Saturday’s event was peaceful on both sides.

Emma Busch, an 18-year-old Vancouver School of Arts and Academics senior who helped organize the march, was flushed and shivering but grinning after the rally. She hugged her friends and co-organizers, and strangers congratulated her and her peers on the event.

But while the March for Our Lives may be behind them, Busch said there’s still more to come from the group of area teenagers.

“We have more to do,” she said. “It’s not going to stop.”