Students from Westwood Middle, Buchholz High, Gainesville High and Eastside High spoke to Congressman Ted Yoho over Skype on Wednesday right after a protest outside his office with gun reform and action against gun violence.
Yoho paid attention to 5 students voice their fears about safety at schools one after the other.
“Schools should be places where we go and obtain a college degree,” Gainesville High student Bryan Jackson said. “We have to be worrying because people can easily get guns and head into an institution and shoot whoever they want.”
He added they feels students?aren’t being heard.
“This is people that will be being affected and changing,” Jackson said. “Our opinions aren’t considered though.”
Jackson felt the only real reason people would own an assault rifle is designed for destruction.
“Well, or perhaps for protection,” Yoho said reacting. “The Second Amendment is just not intended as used for an offensive weapon. It’s meant to be used as the defensive weapon.”
Yoho also expressed his disagreement with raising the minimum age for buying rifles to 7. “…as we say you can’t provide an AR, what happens if they are doing that to the first amendment?” he added.
Students from Buchholz Twelfth grade — with permission off their parents — joined Trilogy School, which bussed students, faculty, and protesters inside do a march alongside Women’s March and Indivisible Gainesville along at the Gainesville District Office from the U.S. Representative Ted Yoho Wednesday, March 14, 2018, at 11:30 am.
The protesters waved signs that read “More gun control is needed” and “NRA = terrorism,” although many chanted “Yoho, Yoho a pirate’s life in my opinion.”
Dhyana Odriscoll’s daughter, Aleta Odriscoll, was enrolled at Buchholz, but once the shooting at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas Senior high school, the mom made a decision to homeschool her.
“I only have one, thus need to use proper care her,” Odriscoll said. “I’m not intending to risk it.”
Dhyana’s daughter, Aleta, said she felt that anytime the Parkland shooting, many people thought it was Alright to commit other shootings. “It’s simply not okay,” the ninth-grader said.
In a prepared speech, 13-year-old Resli Ward spoke with a group while you’re watching district office about her stance on gun control.
“Since the Parkland school shooting and before that,” Ward said, “I have been concerned about my school.”
The Westwood Middle School student said her and her friends sometimes mention what can happen when a shooting occurred inside their school.
“My friend said he would grab a major metal pole from a civics classroom and run,” Ward said. “But once in a while, I joke about grabbing the umbrella in the civics classroom and running.”
The seventh-grader noted that her incapacity to run fast wouldn’t matter all things considered, because she had do not be in a position to improve your speed over a bullet.
Yoho asked just what the students would like him to carry out as the legislator.
“I choose to feel safe walking down the street,” Buchholz High junior Roderick Jackson said.
