For 17 minutes on the morning of Thursday, March 15, hundreds of Arlington High School students stood outside their school as part of a national walkout to protest gun violence. The walkout, organized by AHA Seniors Gayatri Sundar Rajan, Laura Kirchner, Sophie Plotkin and junior Isa Dray, was originally scheduled for Wednesday, March 14.
Griffin Gould, a sophomore at AHS and president of the schools’ Young Democrats club, assembled a group of 35 students who went to the State House in Boston as planned on March 14 alongside hundreds of other Boston-area students. ‘We also demanded of our legislators that they refuse to let private corporations like the NRA and the GOAL pour their money into our politics. We met face to face with Sen. [Cindy] Friedman, Rep. [Sean] Garballey, and Rep. [Dave] Rogers,” Gould told the Advocate in an email.
“I am a huge supporter of gun control legislation, and anything we can do to strengthen our gun control laws,” [Friedman] said. “I’m not against people owning guns but I think we need to do a lot to ensure that we’re safe and that guns are used appropriately.”