Warning: This article contains mentions of gun violence and death.
More than 140 college and high school student leaders signed a letter calling for an end to gun violence published in The Daily Tar Heel, the student newspaper at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Wednesday. The letter was simultaneously published by more than 50 student newspapers at universities across the country.
Weinberg senior Mirabella Johnson, the co-founder and co-lead of Northwestern’s chapter of Students Demand Action, signed the letter, titled “We will not wait for the next school shooting.”
Johnson said the Clark Street Beach shooting in April — which left one Evanston community member dead and two injured — and the shots fired near NU’s Chicago campus in November brought the issue of gun violence closer to home.
“We’re the next generation of leaders, and we’ve seen too many of our friends be impacted by this,” Johnson said. “We don’t have to wait for something bad to happen … to take action and show our force and our power.”
Johnson added that student leaders representing DePaul University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign also signed the letter.
Vice President Kamala Harris shared the op-ed in a post to her X account Wednesday.
“I am proud of these young leaders on campuses across America for organizing and using their voices to call for actions that will save lives,” Harris said in the post.
The letter reflected on past moments when youth activism led to change and invited others to join the movement against gun violence in schools.
Johnson said it’s important to be proactive and preventative with gun advocacy.
“Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t get involved with the advocacy work and educating themselves until it’s too late — until they’ve lost someone,” she said.
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— Assailants in custody after shots fired on NU’s Chicago campus
— EPD arrests second offender in Clark Street Beach shooting
