PHOENIX – About 100 student activists demanding more effective gun laws staged “die-ins” across the Capitol on Friday afternoon, sprawling on floors outside the governor’s office and in the lobbies of the House and Senate.
Activists promised to stay through the night, if necessary, until Gov. Doug Ducey met with them. The governor, whose attention Friday was on averting a statewide teachers’ walkout by urging lawmakers to give educators a raise, so far has declined to do so.
The National Rifle Association has endorsed a bill incorporating Ducey’s so-called school safety plan, according to azcentral.com, but gun-reform activists have said it doesn’t go far enough.
As sunset approached, some students stayed and others left the House and Senate buildings. Five students remained outside Ducey’s office in the nine-story Executive Tower. Officials warned them three times to leave, then turned the lights off. The students remained.
Department of Public Safety officials said they would wait out the students in the legislative buildings rather than arrest them.
The Capitol protests came after a day of school walkouts and rallies on the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting, in which 13 people died and 20 were wounded before the two gunmen killed themselves.
Alfonso Calderon, a survivor of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17 students and staff on Feb. 14, came to Arizona to join in the March for Our Lives walkout and Capitol die-ins.
Calderon said he’s been to many states as part of the gun-control movement but Arizona is “the most uplifting.”
“It’s the one that’s closest to home even though it’s on the other coast of the country,” Calderon said. “The gun laws are basically the same. The gun culture is just as rampant.”
Students in Arizona and across the nation walked out of their classrooms at 10 a.m. Friday, including hundreds of students from Metro Tech High School, who marched 2 ½ miles to the Capitol.
Calderon and Charlie Mirsky, a high school student at another Parkland school, marched with the Metro Tech crowd.
More than 100 students walked out of Horizon High School and marched to nearby Desert Horizon Park, chanting, carrying signs and cheering whenever passing drivers honked their car horns in apparent support.
Jett McCulloch, 15, a junior, organized the walkout at Horizon after seeing tweets on National School Walkout account and showing it to her other members of her class. She only expected about 40 students show up and was happily surprised by the larger turnout.
“We’re doing this because of the inaction of the government,” McCulloch said. “We just want our voices to be heard and let them know that we are upset with how things have been happening and how many lives have been lost too soon because of this issue, with no one doing anything about it.”
Once the Metro Tech students reached the Capitol, they joined a crowd of other Valley high school students. Many were clad in orange, symbolizing the gun control movement.
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About 450 students gathered on the Capitol lawn, joining hands in a wide circle. They chanted together “S-T-O-P, get your guns away from me!” They held hands, chanting louder and louder as a lone counter-protester across the street screamed that they should go back to school and learn something.
After both Parkland students and March for Our Lives Phoenix organizers spoke, students attending the rally took turns telling their personal stories about guns.
There was a table dedicated to voter registration, with members from NextGen America urging attendees to register. Randy Perez, a member of the organization, told students from the stage that the only way to change things was to vote in November.
Cronkite News’ Daria Kadovik contributed to this story.