On February 21st, students from both Central Kitsap High School and Middle School participated in a walkout and rally. In light of that, students should be informed of the reasons behind them, and possible punishments for participating.

“I am protesting because it is my personal belief that the time for gun reform is now,” senior Susannah Terry, organizer of the recent walkout, stated. An 18 year is legally able to buy a gun. They can’t adopt a child until they turn 21.

Terry also wants a ban on assault weapons. There once was such a ban but it expired in 2004. There have been several large scale mass shootings since then: Las Vegas, Orlando, Sutherland Springs, Parkland, Sandy Hook, Aurora, Fort Hood, Blacksburg, Dekalb, and San Bernardino. All of them resulted in over a dozen deaths.

Another point of contention is mental health treatment. Many shooters in recent years were diagnosed with various problems. It does not excuse the shooters actions, but treatment is rather hard to receive, considering the price of psychologists and medicine. The American Academy of Pediatrics recently came out and suggested mandatory annual tests for depression starting at age twelve.

Lax school safety is also a concern. At CK, there are few locked doors. Teachers are given one string to hold their classroom doors closed during a situation. Most classrooms have two doors.

There are always repercussions for any action taken, and protesting has some severe ones.

“I am not afraid of punishment because I know that the cause I stand behind is more important than getting a detention,” Terry affirmed. That does not stop the fear. During the walkout on the 21st, students were supposed to walk down to the Jenne-Wright Administration Building for the full protest.

However, upon being told that students would be marked absent for doing so, many returned to class after the rally outside of the school.

“We don’t discipline for protesting, but we do discipline for disruption,” Gail Danner, one of the school’s principals, stated. The extent of that punishment, however, depends entirely on the disruption in question.

To alleviate some of the stress about punishments, many colleges across the country have pledged that they would not take into account punishments received due to the protests.

Another repercussion of the protests are the kind of people who come out of the woodwork. They are the ones who wander through the crowd holding signs saying “Less Gun Control” or “I Support The NRA” side by side with people who were personally affected by the various shootings over the years.

There is no way to combat them, but ignoring them is a better avenue to take than fighting.

The future is bright for the protests. Several more are planned in the coming months. One for the month anniversary of Parkland on March 14th, another on the 24th called “March For Our Lives” where survivors of Parkland will march on Washington, and the final planned one is on April 20th, the 19th anniversary of the Columbine massacre, which killed 13 people.

“I’m done living in fear!” one student cried out during the walkout. These protests are students ways of combating that fear, of forcing it out of schools entirely. No one should die at school.