<\/p>\n
On a brisk Saturday afternoon in late March, hundreds of protestors gathered in a grassy field at Lincoln Park in Grand Junction, Colorado, a conservative stronghold of the state. Dressed in red shirts emblazoned with the words \u201cStudents Demand Action,\u201d student organizers handed out pre-made posters to attendees and practiced chants ahead of a student-led march. This march, which had hundreds of participants, was timed to coincide with thousands of other March for our Lives events taking place on main streets and in front of courthouses across the country. In Grand Junction, the protesters marched to the center of town to both the honks of approval from residents as well as shouts of \u201cI love my AR-15\u201d from a bystander or two.<\/p>\n
The school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, spurred activism by high school students across the country, including the creation of Grand Valley Students United, the student-led organization that hosted the march in Grand Junction. In this quiet city wedged up against Colorado\u2019s westernmost border with Utah, students were called to action for another reason: They\u2019ve experienced two school lockdowns in the past year, with the most recent scare \u2014 in which an unfounded rumor of a gunman running toward a local high school caused two schools to go into lockdown for nearly three hours \u2014 taking place just a few weeks after the shooting in Florida. \u201cThis could have been us,\u201d said Rachel Fero, a sophomore at Fruita Monument High School, which was locked down. \u201cIt is coming to our schools. We are being affected and feel that we are the generations that need to make a change,\u201d she told me while we waited for the march to begin.<\/p>\n
Here on Colorado\u2019s Western Slope \u2014 where this protest took place a few miles from an AR-15 manufacturer \u2014 broaching the topic of gun reform is tense. Even as students elsewhere have called for sweeping gun bans, these high schoolers have tempered their message, a reflection of the fraught nature of the topic in this conservative community.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are taking a very moderate stance as far as our platform goes,\u201d said Spencer Hurt, one of the founders of the group. The Grand Valley students are calling for universal background checks, raising the age to purchase assault rifles to 21 and promoting safe storage of guns, among other gun safety measures. \u201cWe aren\u2019t trying to ban guns. We aren\u2019t trying to take away Second Amendment rights. We are just trying to promote safety,\u201d Hurt said.<\/p>\n
But student activists have faced heavy criticism. Veniece Miller, a senior at Fruita Monument High School, said after she was interviewed by a local news station about the group\u2019s decision to host a walkout in their school district, she was bullied on social media. \u201cMany of (the commenters) were telling me that I don\u2019t know anything, that I\u2019m just a \u2018Tide pod eater.\u2019 That I need to jump off a cliff,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
But the antagonism has strengthened the students\u2019 determination to get people talking. \u201cWe went into this knowing that we live in a conservative community and knowing that we wouldn\u2019t have tens of thousands of people show up like somewhere out East,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we feel like we are starting a conversation, which is important.\u201d<\/p>\n
The students are trying to take that conversation offline, where it\u2019s most heated. Grand Valley Students United is organizing a town hall-style event calling on Sen. Cory Gardner, Rep. Scott Tipton and Sen. Michael Bennett to hear their concerns. Their objective is to capture the differing views in the region, \u201censuring that elected officials hear our voices and do not ignore this part of the state,\u201d Hurt said. They hope the discussion, which will be held at a local university in May, will bring together community members with different perspectives. \u201c(We want) to make sure that (community members) are open to having a conversation,\u201d he said. The students also hope the event will be a chance to clarify what the group\u2019s stances are on gun reform efforts and diffuse some of the heated rhetoric accusing them of attacking the Second Amendment that has sprouted in the days since the march.<\/p>\n
There are signs that the region is beginning to shift on gun law reform. Izzy Brophy, a local high school student, said she\u2019s seen friends from conservative families support the movement, including some of whom came to the march and had to lie to their parents. \u201cIt is really heartening to see students work outside their parents\u2019 perspectives because it is hard to do that,\u201d she said. And the calls for gun reform go beyond the students: The march attracted a sizeable older crowd from Grand Junction and surrounding communities.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s school district also has been supportive of the students\u2019 right to protest, facing down criticism from parents and community members. One resident expressed their thoughts about the district\u2019s stance in a letter to the editor published in the local paper. \u201cRecent student walkouts tolerated by District 51 officials prove that no one is teaching world history or American history to these teens who are asking to have their constitutional rights taken away,\u201d the commenter wrote.<\/p>\n
While it is difficult to begin talking about gun reform to \u201ca valley of gun owners and hunters,\u201d Kainoa Cunningham, a student organizer, said it is also necessary. \u201cWhat has allowed me to get over my fear (of retribution) is the greater fear that our community could just as easily become the next tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n
This article was first published on hcn.org.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Junction teens broach a tense topic with community members<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":100180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[1409,150,3719],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-100179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-demonstration","tag-firearms","tag-massacre"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100179"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=100179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}