Groups of students across the country walked out of their classrooms Friday to bring attention to gun violence in schools. The group Students Demand Action led more than a hundred registered walkouts today across the country, including several in Wake County.
In Morrisville, about 200 students at Wake Early College of Information and Biotechnologies held a demonstration at noon.
Senior Biruk Yidnekachew, the school's student body president, helped organize the march with the Young Citizens Club. He said it's a reaction to the recent shooting of students attending mass with their classmates at the Church of the Annunciation in Minneapolis at the start of this school year.
He said he's worried that it's become too easy to feel numb about school shootings because of how often they happen in the United States.
"It shouldn't be a 'Oh, a school shooting happened.'" Yiknekachew said. "It should be, ‘We are horrified.’ It should be we're looking at this kind of a situation with disgust and with anger and with an attitude of, 'How can we fix this?'"
The walkout at Wake Early College of Information and Biotechnologies drew attention from local officials, as Rep. Valerie Foushee and Morrisville Mayor TJ Cawley attended the event.
Students seek gun control policies, as NC has been relaxing restrictions
North Carolina students are also reaching out to their representatives in Congress and the state legislature to call for more gun control measures – including closing loopholes on mandatory background checks; banning assault rifles; and requiring permits and waiting periods to purchase firearms.
In North Carolina, state lawmakers have been moving in the opposite direction, for example passing a bill to allow people to carry concealed guns without a permit, when a permit was previously required. That bill went to Gov. Josh Stein, who vetoed it, and the House has not yet voted to complete a veto override.
Researchers for the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety have ranked North Carolina 24th in the nation for gun law strength, noting efforts by the state legislature in recent years to repeal prior gun control measures. For example, gun sales appear to have spiked in North Carolina in 2023 after the state no longer required a permit to carry a pistol.
According to Everytown, there have been five shootings at K-12 schools so far this fall semester, and at least 91 incidents of gunfire on school grounds in 2025, with 31 deaths and 89 injuries nationally.
"I just don't want to get hurt when I'm going to school every day," Yidnekachew said. "This is a place that I go every single day, and it's supposed to be a safe place."
