A walkout was held protesting gun violence on Monday, Mar. 18. The walkout occurred during lunch and was led by the Done with Guns organization which was founded by sophomore Moubon Kurukumbi.
Kurukumbi founded Done with Guns in Oct. 2023, which has since grown to fifty members. The organization focuses on raising awareness about gun violence in America.
“The main reason I started [this initiative] is because of a personal connection that I had with a friend of mine who lost someone they love to gun violence,” Kurukumbi said. “It’s very scary to me. It terrifies me how much guns control our society right now. I know it’s the Second Amendment right for everyone to have a gun, but it’s also our right to be protected and to feel safe wherever we go.”
Done with Guns applies a variety of methods to acknowledge gun violence in America One method was holding daily moments of silence in school to recognize those who have passed, some of whom were as young as the students participating in the protest.
“I’ve helped make a few of the daily moment of silence series, and it’s impacted me because I realized that gun violence can happen to anybody because as I’ve been reading these interviews and articles about all these people who are killed,” sophomore Kyungsup Hwang said. “I realized that a lot of them are younger or the same age as me, and they’ve all had their own dreams and aspirations.”
Gun violence in America has impacted the lives of students all over the nation. According to the Washington Post, more than 360,000 students have been exposed to gun violence at school in America since 1999.
“It’s a subject that’s been very near and dear to a lot of people’s hearts. This walkout means a lot of people [are] coming together on something that’s been dividing our country a lot. And I think that’s really powerful,” sophomore Ayesha Gulzar said.
With a team to work with, planning the walkout began and included working not only with students but also school administrators and teachers.
“I did not know what was gonna happen. I messaged a lot of people, [but] I [did not] know if anyone was going to show up. Or if a lot of people we’re going to show up, but I’m happy with what happened to putting it together. We met with the principal and talked with her, messaged administrative assistant Mr. Dylan Forshay [to ask] for the microphone, made a poster committee so that people would make posters and hand out pins. [We also] found speakers [and] made posters to advertise those speakers,” Kurukumbi said.
In addition to Jefferson’s walkout, Done with Guns has multiple teams focused on preparations for the walkout to outreach teams helping with not only this event but also larger scale walkouts in the future and student meetings.
“I posted a lot on my story on different social media platforms because I was trying to get as many people to join, ” Hwang said. “I also told a few friends about it. I knew that the speakers were going to say really good things and I’m friends with Moubon so I helped her spread the word about this.”
Done with Guns will continue to inform the Jefferson community and communicate with legislators to eventually make national change.
“The main thing that we want to do is get emails out to legislators. Having this walkout is evidence that Jefferson students care about this and we want to do something about it,” Kurukumbi said. “We also want to continue doing outreach and having bigger platforms for that. Hopefully we can grow [our] social media and website to educate the general public.”